Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Labour leadership: Thornberry gives Corbyn '0 out of 10' for election, but '10 out of 10' for principle - as it happened

Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary and Labour leadership candidate.
Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary and Labour leadership candidate. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Media

Afternoon summary

  • MPs have been debating the third reading of the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill, and they will vote on its shortly. The shadow Brexit minister, Thangam Debbonaire, said that Labour would be voting against, but that that did not mean the party was voting against Brexit. The government is certain to win, and the bill will then go to the Lords.
  • Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has said the EU is continuing to plan for the prospect of “no-deal” at the end of 2020, when the UK could leave the post-Brexit transition without a trade deal in place. (See 11.28am.)
  • Clive Lewis, the Labour leadership candidate, has said that “radical federalism” would be the best constitutional settlement for the UK. (See 9.18am.)
  • Barry Gardiner has said that Labour colleagues are urging him to stand in the leadership election because they see him as someone who could win a general election. (See 1.26pm.)
  • Khalid Mahmood has announced that he is withdrawing from the contest to be Labour’s deputy leader, the BBC’s Kathryn Stanczyszyn reports.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Jenrick accused of 'farce' after launching 'Town of Year' competition in city

A government minister facing criticism after announcing a ‘Town of The Year’ competition in a city has claimed that it was not the official launch which will take place later this year.

Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, defended statements about the city of Wolverhampton from the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, which described it as a town on two occasions.

Nineteen years ago Wolverhampton was one of three towns named as a Millennium 2000 City after a decade-long campaign by local MPs and councillors, fighting off competition from 36 other places.

The disclosure in the Guardian was particularly embarrassing for Jenrick, who was born and educated in Wolverhampton, which became a city when he was 18. Civic figures have claimed it is proof that the Tories are paying lip service to the UK’s struggling towns.

In an interview with Sky News on Thursday, Jenrick claimed that his department did not get it wrong and denied that he did not know that Wolverhampton was a city. He said:

We didn’t launch this competition in Wolverhampton.

Having been born and bred in Wolverhampton I don’t need the Guardian to tell me that it was a town and is now a city. I was living in the town when it became a city.

Jenrick’s claims that the competition has not yet been launched appear to be contradicted by his own departmental press release which was sent to the media on Wednesday. It reads: “Communities secretary announces new Town of the Year competition to celebrate thriving towns.” It goes on to say Jenrick would be in Wolverhampton and quotes him as saying: “To celebrate the achievements of our towns, we are launching a national Town of the Year competition.”

Andrew Gwynne, the shadow communities secretary, said:

This whole announcement has been a farce, but the real tragedy is whether in towns or cities our communities are struggling after a decade of cuts.

Instead of pitting towns or cities against each other in a beauty contest - the government should be properly funding our vital public services.

Robert Jenrick.
Robert Jenrick. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Media

Updated

The Labour MP Justin Madders says he has nominated Lisa Nandy for leader, and Angela Rayner for deputy leader.

From my colleague Peter Walker

Rosena Allin-Khan, the Labour MP for Tooting who is standing for the deputy leadership, has drafted a code of conduct for leader and deputy leadership candidates to sign. She says Jess Phillips (here) and Emily Thornberry have backed it.

Anti-Brexit campaigners outside the House of Parliament today.
Anti-Brexit campaigners outside the House of Parliament today.
 Photograph: Peter Summers/Getty Images

Government 'may have won hard Brexit, but they've lost Scotland', SNP MP tells Commons

MPs have been debating the third reading of the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill. It has been a relatively pedestrian affair – it is hard to say anything new about Brexit at this point, ministers are not revealing much about their strategy for the trade talks, and the government majority means opposition MPs can do almost nothing to change the bill – but there are some quotes anyway, from the Press Association wire.

Paul Blomfield, the shadow Brexit minister, said the government should not assume that its election victory was a mandate for a very hard Brexit. He told MPs:

Leaving the EU doesn’t mean that we will have got Brexit done. We’ll have completed the first step, departure, but the difficult stage is yet to come.

I would though, urge the government, as we move into this next stage, not to over-interpret its mandate in the general election ...

The decision of the general election isn’t a mandate to bulldoze through a particular version at any cost on all the people of the United Kingdom, and the next few months need to be approached with sensitivity and with caution if we are to stay together as a United Kingdom.

Fleur Anderson, the new Labour MP for Putney, said the bill could encourage racism. In her maiden speech she said:

There are high risks that racism and discrimination will be given permission by this bill. I’ve seen it happen, it happened straight after the referendum and it’s happened since. So it’s very important to say here in this place that we may be leaving the EU but we’re proud of our place in Europe and the world.

And the SNP’s Pete Wishart said the government was losing Scotland. He said:

[The government] may have won their hard Brexit, but they have most definitely lost Scotland ...

It’s over, it’s over. Scotland will be an independent country. The sooner this house recognises it the better.

The battle for us to have Brexit is over, they’ve won. The battle for Scottish independence has just begun.

Updated

The troubled Northern rail franchise faces financial collapse within months, Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has said, as the government set out a timetable to tackle the “unacceptable services” for rail passengers in the north. My colleague Gwyn Topham has the full story here.

Updated

Nadia Whittome, the new Labour MP for Nottingham East, also says she is going to nominate Clive Lewis for Labour leader without necessarily planning to vote for him because she wants his ideas to be part of the debate. Lloyd Russell-Moyle is in this position too. (See 1.55pm.)

A climate crisis protester interrupting first minister’s questions in Holyrood this afternoon.
A climate crisis protester interrupting first minister’s questions in Holyrood this afternoon. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

In Edinburgh, first minister’s questions – briefly interrupted by Extinction Rebellion climate protesters – were dominated by a domestic agenda today, but not without the usual thread of constitutional matters. The interim Conservative leader, Jackson Carlaw’s attack on Nicola Sturgeon’s education record probably has to be seen in the context of his current bid for party leadership to replace Ruth Davidson, as he promised that 2020 would be the year of holding the SNP government to account.

Likewise, the Scottish Labour leader, Richard Leonard, mounted a dissection of social care services, arguing that the failing integration of health and social care services alongside council funding cuts were the direct responsibility of the Scottish government.

As usual, Westminster was not far away: Sturgeon responded that her government was working to protect heath and social care within a very constrained overall budget, the ultimate result of Westminster austerity. Similarly, she rebuffed attempts to criticise the SNP’s record by repeating that the public had given their verdict in last month’s election. One might argue this is not necessarily a direct conclusion of the SNP’s general election success, given that a Westminster campaign does not scrutinise their performance in Holyrood.

But when Brexit was mentioned directly, with a question about Wednesday’s decisive Holyrood vote to reject Boris Johnson’s withdrawal agreement, Sturgeon repeated what is now an entirely familiar call for Scotland to have the opportunity to decide its own future. While yesterday’s vote was entirely symbolic – Holyrood can’t bind the Westminster parliament in this way – it does add to the growing narrative of Scotland as entirely divergent politically from the rest of the UK.

Nicola Sturgeon at first minister’s questions.
Nicola Sturgeon at first minister’s questions. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Updated

Here is the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush on Barry Gardiner’s possible run for the Labour leadership. (See 1.26pm.)

Updated

Emily Thornberry has picked up another nomination. This is from the Labour MP and former minister Gareth Thomas.

Earlier I said that there was no evidence in this contest of Labour MPs nominating someone for the leadership even though they did not want them to become leader. (See 9.38am.) Some MPs nominated Jeremy Corbyn on this basis in 2015, and were horrified when he actually won.

Not for the first time, I spoke to soon. On the BBC’s Daily Politics Lloyd Russell-Moyle said that, although he was backing Rebecca Long Bailey for the leadership, he was considering nominating Clive Lewis because he thought that Lewis’s ideas for constitutional reform should be included in the debate.

Hannah Bardell, an SNP MP who was who was called “queer” by a peer after she raised his “abusive” behaviour towards parliamentary staff, is set to report him to the police for an alleged hate crime, HuffPost’s Arj Singh reports. Bardell was speaking in the Commons during business questions this morning. Here is an extract from Singh’s story.

Lord Ken Maginnis was accused of ‘one of the worst cases of abuse of security staff I have seen’ by SNP MP Hannah Bardell.

The Northern Irish Ulster Unionist peer launched a tirade at staff, calling them “crooked” after he forgot his pass to enter parliament and they would not allow him in, Bardell told the Commons on Wednesday.

Responding to HuffPost UK, Maginnis did not deny the allegations, instead choosing to attack Bardell by accusing her of attempting to to “settle a score” because she is “queer” and he is opposed to gay marriage.

Bardell will now ask the police to look into both the incident at the Palace of Westminster’s underground entrance, and his subsequent comments attacking her ...

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the House of Commons, said Maginnis’s “attack” on Bardell was “unutterably disgraceful”. He told MPs Bardell was “clearly owed an apology” from the peer.

Updated

Barry Gardiner says he could win a general election as he confirms he is considering entering leadership contest

Journalists last night were taken aback by the news that Barry Gardiner, the shadow international trade secretary, was considering entering the Labour leadership contest because it sounded most improbable. Gardiner has not been campaigning, candidates only have until 2.30pm on Monday to get the 22 nominations they need from MPs or MEPs to stay in the contest, around half of MPs have already nominated someone, and Gardiner himself is in Abu Dhabi at a climate crisis event, which is not the best place to be if you need to win over almost two dozen MPs. But he is considering standing, as he told my colleague Kate Proctor. Here is her story.

This morning Gardiner gave another interview about his possible candidature to the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire. He was speaking from Abu Dhabi, apparently via Skype. Here are the main points.

  • Gardiner said if he could get the backing of 22 MPs he definitely would stand. Asked if he would be a candidate, he replied:

If I know that I can secure the 22 votes necessary in order to go forward to the next stage, then I will stand. But until I have that assurance from my colleagues then I’m not going to go further than considering it just at the moment.

  • He said if he did stand it would be to “energise” the campaign and to get “dynamism” into the debate.
  • He confirmed that Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, had not asked him to stand. And he said no one had urged him to stand on McCluskey’s behalf. But he would welcome McCluskey’s support, he said. He told Derbyshire:

Len, if you are watching, I would be very pleased to get a phone call from you. I would like to talk through with you how we can improve employment rights in this country, how we can have safer standards at work, and all the things that we are about ... And I would, of course, love to have your support.

This is odd because, according to McCluskey, Gardiner did get a call from the Unite leader last night.

  • Gardiner said Labour colleagues were urging him to stand because they saw him as an election winner. Asked what qualities he had that other candidates didn’t, he replied:

I can win a general election.

Asked if he was saying the other candidates could not, he went on:

I’m setting out what I believe is the key reason why colleagues, many of whom have spoken to me and encouraged me to stand, have said to me.

They believe I have the ability to communicate, to bring that dynamism of debate, that is necessary in order to go out to the country.

McCluskey says he has not urged Gardiner to run, but Skwawkbox, a pro-Corbyn website supported by Unite and seen by some as a mouthpiece for the union, has over the last two days run articles promoting Gardiner as a candidate. Skwawkbox also ran various articles pushing Ian Lavery as a leadership candidate until he announced that he would not be standing. These blogposts fuelled the theory that some Corbynites were either unhappy with Rebecca Long Bailey as a candidate, or doubtful about whether she could win, and were looking around for someone else to champion Corbynism in the contest.

Barry Gardiner (left) with Jeremy Corbyn at an event during the general election campaign.
Barry Gardiner (left) with Jeremy Corbyn at an event during the general election campaign. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Updated

Jack McConnell, the former Labour Scottish first minister, is backing Lisa Nandy for Labour leader, the Scotsman’s Paris Gourtsoyannis reports.

The Labour leadership candidate Jess Phillips has posted this response on Twitter to Clive Lewis’s article in the Nation saying Scottish Labour should be free to back independence. (See 9.18am.)

Thornberry gives Corbyn '0 out of 10' for election performance, but '10 out of 10' for principle

The Labour leadership candidate Emily Thornberry has been speaking to Sky News and she has been giving her own marks for Jeremy Corbyn on a scale from 0 to 10. Rebecca Long Bailey, of course, said on Tuesday that Corbyn deserves 10 out of 10 as a leader. Thornberry’s assessment is less generous. She told Sky:

I remain convinced that Jeremy is not antisemitic. But I think that clearly we completely failed when it came to dealing with antisemitism in the party, and that was a failure of leadership. And Jeremy knows my views on this. And I’m afraid I would not give him more than 2 out of 10 in relation to that.

But when it comes to principle, bringing people into the party, firing up the party, bringing us back to speaking from our hearts, I would give him 10 out of 10.

Losing an election is probably the most important thing by which you would measure a leader, and obviously we lost very, very badly. And on that basis, I would give him on that nought out of 10. What else could I do?

This is from Sky’s Mollie Malone.

Updated

Downing Street has now issued a fuller read-out of the PM’s conversation with the Iranian president. A spokesman said:

The prime minister spoke to President Rouhani of Iran this morning.

They discussed the situation in the region following the death of Qassem Suleimani and the prime minister called for an end to hostilities.

The prime minister underlined the UK’s continued commitment to the JCPOA and to ongoing dialogue to avoid nuclear proliferation and reduce tensions.

He raised the continued detention and mistreatment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other dual nationals in Iran and called for their immediate release.

Updated

Johnson calls for 'end to hostilities' in call with Iranian president

Boris Johnson has spoken to the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, and called for “an end to hostilities” in the Gulf, No 10 has said.

I will post more from the No 10 briefing when I get it.

Updated

EU will continue to plan for possible no-deal Brexit at end of 2020, says Barnier

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, delivered a speech in Sweden this morning, and then held a lengthy Q&A afterwards. The text of his speech is here, and there is video of the meeting on the Facebook page for the European commission in Sweden. Most of what he said was quite familiar, but there were some lines worth flagging up.

  • Barnier said that the EU would continue to prepare for a possible no-deal Brexit at the end of 2020. That was because there was a possibility that the UK and the EU might fail to reach an agreement this year, which would lead to no-deal because the UK government is ruling out an extension of the post-Brexit transition. He explained:

If Prime Minister Johnson does not want an extension of the transition period beyond the end of the year – and yesterday when we met him with Ursula von der Leyen, he told us very clearly that he does not want such an extension – we will have less than 11 months to conclude a deal.

If we fail, the transition period will end on 1 January 2021 without any arrangements for a new future relationship in place.

This would not affect the issues covered in the withdrawal agreement ...

But it would mean the return of tariffs and quotas: a total anachronism for interconnected economies like ours.

Of course, this is not what the EU wants.

But it is nonetheless a scenario that everyone must continue to prepare for – at EU level, but also at national level, and here in Sweden.

  • Barnier restated the EU’s belief that it would be impossible to conclude a comprehensive agreement with the UK this year. He said:

We will strive for a partnership that goes well beyond trade and is unprecedented in scope: covering everything from services and fisheries, to climate action, energy, transport, space, security and defence.

But that is a huge agenda. And we simply cannot expect to agree on every single aspect of this new partnership in under a year ...

If we want to agree on each and every point of this political declaration – which would lead to an unprecedented relationship – it will take more than 11 months.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European commission, made the same point when she was in London with Barnier yesterday to meet Johnson.

  • Barnier said the EU would insist on fishing being included as part of an overall trade deal. In the Q&A he was asked how the trade negotiations would be conducted, and whether the EU would insist on the principle that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” that applied during the first stage of the negotiations. Barnier said this time the negotiations would be carried out in a different way. But he went on:

But there are some sectors where the point will remain linked. If I have to be more precise, speaking about economy and trade, there will be no agreement without global agreement on trade for goods, the level playing field and fisheries. I think I’m clear.

Barnier said there would be a parallel negotiation covering security and defence. But he said he wanted to be “very clear” about the need for trade, level playing field rules and fishing to be considered together. This may turn out to be a flashpoint in the talks because the fishing industry is not happy about the idea that EU access to British waters may get given away in the hope of securing concessions in other parts of the trade talks.

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, speaking in Stockholm this morning.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, speaking in Stockholm this morning.
 Photograph: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

Here is a question from a reader below the line (BTL) that I should have addressed in the post on the private members’ bills ballot. (See 10.16am.)

User avatar for Shadowcaptain

The results of the ballot for private members’ bills have been announced. Twenty MPs have been selected, which means they will be given a chance to introduce a private member’s bill,

@ Andrew - do we know what the subjects of the bills the winners are proposing will be , I understand they don't enter and then think what they want to do with the place.

When MPs enter the ballot they don’t have to say what bill they would put forward and most of them don’t give it much thought at this stage because the chances of doing well in the ballot are relatively small. Some of them may have some ideas. But generally they wait a bit before making an announcement, partly to see what the options are available (MPs who do well in the ballot tend to get lobbied by campaigning organisations promoting off-the-shelf bills), and partly to see what the government might back. If you want a private member’s bill that will actually pass, the safest option is to choose a quasi-government bill. Most departments have small bits of legislation that they want to pass that they haven’t been able to get into the Queen’s speech.

In the Commons Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary and favourite in the Labour leadership contest, has just made his first intervention in Brexit questions. He also raised the government’s decision to remove the child refugee protections from the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill. It was a “disgraceful decision”, Starmer said, and he told Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, that he must know the government had got it wrong. He said a legal obligation had been removed, and replaced with “reliance on the prime minister’s word”, and that Barclay should be able to see why that was unacceptable. Starmer said Labour would continue to fight this.

We may not win many votes in parliament just now, but we can win the moral argument.

In response, Barclay repeated his claim that the UK had a good record when it came to taking unaccompanied child refugees. (See 9.48am.) He said the Home Office had given a commitment to negotiate with the EU on this issue. And he said the Tory manifesto even included a commitment on this, on page 23.

He was referring to this line in the manifesto.

We will continue to grant asylum and support to refugees fleeing persecution, with the ultimate aim of helping them to return home if it is safe to do so.

The results of the ballot for private members’ bills have been announced. Twenty MPs have been selected, which means they will be given a chance to introduce a private member’s bill, but it is only the MPs at the top of the ballot – Mike Amesbury, Darren Jones, Anna McMorrin, Laura Trott, Chris Loder, Paula Barker – who can be confident that they have a decent chance of getting their bill through because they should get a full Friday for it to be debated.

To pass a private member’s bill, an MP needs to choose legislation that will secure government backing. In the 2017-19 session of parliament nine of these bills became law.

Updated

This is from the SNP MP Tommy Sheppard commenting on the Clive Lewis article. (See 9.18am.)

Scottish government representatives will tell their UK counterparts that Scotland had “the right to choose an alternative future” at a meeting of the joint ministerial committee EU negotiations in London today.

The first meeting of the committee this year comes the day after the Scottish parliament voted decisively to reject Boris Johnson’s withdrawal bill. On Wednesday evening, 92 MSPs backed the Scottish government’s memorandum withholding legislative consent from the latest withdrawal agreement, while only 29 voted against it.

Both the Scottish and Welsh parliaments have voted against giving legislative consent to the withdrawal agreement previously although, because they cannot prevent any UK legislation from becoming law, this has been a largely symbolic exercise.

Ahead of the meeting, the Scottish government’s Brexit secretary Michael Russell said:

The current hard deal Brexit proposed by the UK government will impose significant damage on the people and economy of Scotland hitting employment and living standards.

Despite our repeated efforts to discuss alternatives our proposals have been ignored. The UK government has repeatedly promised it would involve the devolved administrations, but has completely failed to do so.

In the Commons on Wednesday afternoon MPs rejected an amendment to the withdrawal agreement bill tabled by Plaid Cymru that sought to give the Welsh and Scottish parliaments, as well as the Northern Ireland assembly, the right to approve the UK government’s negotiating objectives when it came to the future relationship between the EU and UK.

Plaid Cymru’s Westminster Leader, Liz Saville Roberts, said that Wales had been “at best an afterthought” in the negotiations so far, and that it was “imperative” that Wales’s voice be heard in the phase two discussions.

Updated

In the Commons Nick Thomas-Symonds, a shadow Home Office minister, has just challenged Barclay to commit to ensuring that the EU would never have stronger employment rights than the UK after Brexit. Barclay refused to give that commitment, but he said the government would stick to the promise in the Conservative manifesto to maintain high standards. He said in many respects, like maternity rights, UK standards were already much higher than the EU minimum.

In the Commons Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, has just said that the UK has a “proud record” of taking unaccompanied child refugees. Speaking during Brexit questions, and responding to a question about the government’s decision to remove child refugee protections from the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill, he said the UK took 15% of the EU total of unaccompanied child refugees. He said MPs should not be talking down the UK’s record.

According to the well-regarded @CLPNominations Twitter feed, Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, is doing almost as badly as Clive Lewis when it comes to collecting nominations from MPs. Like Lewis, she too might be out of the contest by Monday afternoon.

On the Today programme this morning, in an interview mostly about Iran, Thornberry said she had not given up hope of getting the 22 nominations that she needs. But she didn’t sound confident, and she was reduced to making the argument that someone with her foreign policy background should be “in the mix” in the contest to add to the debate. She said:

I have a number of people who have pledged to support me. I am out there making the argument, let’s see what happens.

Current events and the fires in Australia do tend to show how the job of the leader of the Labour party - and indeed the job of Labour prime minister - is likely to be framed.

We need somebody who has experience, as I have had over the last three or four years, of looking in detail at the security of Britain and our relationships with the rest of the world.

It would be good to have someone with that experience on the stage in the mix in a debate about who should be leader of the Labour party.

In 2010 and again in 2015 some MPs nominated candidates they did not want as Labour leader just to ensure a wider debate. Diane Abbott was the beneficiary in 2010, and of course Jeremy Corbyn made it onto the ballot through this route in 2015. But the decision to nominate Corbyn did not work out quite in the way many people expected, and this time around there is no evidence that any MPs are planning to nominate a candidate they don’t really support just in the hope of widening the debate.

Emily Thornberry.
Emily Thornberry. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Media

Clive Lewis backs federalism, and says Scottish Labour should be fully independent

Good morning. So far the Labour leadership contest has not generated much of a debate about the constitution, and the future of the UK, but this morning Clive Lewis has pitched in with an article for the National, the pro-independence paper in Scotland, saying the Scottish Labour party should be totally independent of the party in England, and that it should be free to back Scottish independence. Lewis says:

Nor should any English party dictate to the Scottish. Scottish Labour, like Welsh Labour, should have full autonomy from the English – free to decide their views on fundamental questions like support for independence, acting as a Labour party for Scotland, not only a Labour party in Scotland. I believe the SNP’s record in the Scottish government demands a strong, socialist, Scottish Labour opposition, as does their pro-austerity growth commission vision for independence.

Lewis says he thinks a second independence referendum is inevitable.

For decades, Scotland suffered under Conservative governments elected primarily with English votes, whilst the experience of austerity, imposed by Westminster governments that Scotland did not elect, has simply reinforced the problem. It is little surprise then, that many Scots see themselves not as partners in a union of equal nations, but as a country shackled instead to a dysfunctional political system that is costing them dearly.

Given the option to exit the UK, it is little wonder that so many now support independence and given the prospect of at least five years of Tory rule imposing a Brexit that Scotland did not vote for, the question of independence and a second referendum is unavoidable.

But he says his preference is for the UK to adopt a federal model.

It is not for me, as an English MP for an English constituency, to dictate to Scotland what that form of government should be, and there should be no question of Labour opposing a second independence referendum if there is a mandate to hold one. It remains my conviction, nonetheless, that radical federalism, with the maximum possible autonomy for Scotland would provide the best solution for all the constituent nations of the United Kingdom. This is because my politics is driven by a belief in building alliances and whether in the UK or in Europe, I believe we are stronger when we work together. But I want to be part of a union where everyone feels heard and their needs are accounted for. We have to be honest and admit that this simply isn’t the case at the moment.

Lewis is a rank outsider in the Labour leadership contest, and it is very possible that he will be out of the contest by Monday afternoon next week, when nominations from MPs close. He needs 22, but currently he just has two. However, he is doing more than other candidates to open up a debate on pluralism and on political reform. In some respect his campaign is similar to Rory Stewart’s in the Tory leadership contest.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: A ballot is held in the Commons for MPs who want to get a slot to table a private member’s bill.

9.30am: Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After 10.30am: Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, makes a statement on forthcoming business in the Commons.

After 11.30am: Heather Wheeler, a Foreign Office minister, makes a statement in the Commons about the Australian bushfires.

After 12.30am: MPs debate the third reading of the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill.

As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary when I wrap up.

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

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

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

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

Clive Lewis.
Clive Lewis. Photograph: Jason Bye/Alamy Stock Photo

Updated

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
‘Serve, smile, procreate’: Yesteryear author Caro Claire Burke on the rise of the tradwife
As her dark debut about a tradwife who wakes up in the past is made into a film by Anne Hathaway, the novelist explores the sinister truth behind the barefoot influencers
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Another Day, Another Round Of Internet Users Calling Out The Kardashians For Major Photo Editing
Here we go again.
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Tom Holland, King of Marvel spoilers, also managed to ruin the Avengers movies for Zendaya: "I was like... 'Why did you tell me that?!'"
Love means never having to say you're sorry, or something
Total Film
Total Film
Every "Groundbreaking" Outfit From Anne Hathaway's 'The Devil Wears Prada 2' Press Tour
This fashion marathon isn't moving at a glacial pace.
Marie Claire
Marie Claire
“I believe with all my heart that it will translate to something good”: Lindsey Buckingham teases reunion with Stevie Nicks following renewed interest in their pre-Fleetwood Mac album
The two publicly fell out in 2018 and Buckingham subsequently left Fleetwood Mac
Guitar World
Guitar World
Newly spotted Clone Wars Easter egg in Ahsoka season 1 might be a huge hint at the season 2 plot
One Ahsoka detail might be a huge hint for the future
Total Film
Total Film
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play