Closing summary
We’re going to close down this live blog now. Thanks for reading and commenting – here’s a summary of the afternoon’s events:
- Labour’s leader Jeremy Corbyn issued a strong message to the seven MPs who resigned from his party. He reminded the group that they “were elected to carry out those policies”. The Labour leader was speaking at the annual conference of the manufacturers’ group Make UK. It was his first public appearance since the breakaway MPs announced their departure.
- Earlier Corbyn said that his party has developed policies that are radical but they are also popular and the party is doing it best to put them forward. His comments came in response to a question about what Labour is doing, or going to do, to retain MPs and stop others from leaving.
- The business secretary, Greg Clark, said that uncertainty over Britain’s future in the European Union must end due to the negative impact it was having, after Honda said it would close its car plant in Britain. “This news comes on top of months of uncertainty that you as manufacturers have had to endure about Brexit, about our future relationship with the EU,” said Clark.
-
A report has found that Brexit is already leading to a “palpable decline” in British influence at the UN, and that influence would be in freefall but for the UK’s commitment to spend 0.7 % of gross national income on overseas aid.
- Labour MP Chuka Umunna has said he hopes to form a new party by the end of the year. It follows his resignation, along with six other MPs, who left the party due to disagreements over the party’s stance on Brexit and issues of antisemitism.
That’s all from us this evening.
Jeremy Corbyn has accused Theresa May of trying to “blackmail” MPs into backing her Brexit deal by running down the clock to prevent alternative plans being considered.
The Labour leader accused the prime minister of risking a no-deal Brexit in order to keep the Conservative party together.
The Labour leader, who has suffered a split in his own party on Monday, partly due to Brexit policy, called on the prime minister to accept his offer of working on a “sensible” deal.
Addressing manufacturers’ organisation Make UK, formerly known as EEF, he said Labour’s plan – based on a customs union – “could win the support of parliament, be negotiated with the European Union and help bring the country together”.
Corbyn, who is due to hold talks with EU negotiator Michel Barnier on Thursday, said the Labour plan “has been widely welcomed as a way of breaking the impasse”.
He said: “If the prime minister is unable to adopt a sensible deal because it would split the Tories, then there needs to be a general election. Without it we will keep all options on the table, including the option of a public vote. The country cannot be taken over the cliff edge for the sake of Tory party unity.”
“The government is running down the clock in an attempt to blackmail MPs with the threat of crashing out without a deal.”
An estimated 100,000 Scots could lose their job in the event of a no-deal Brexit, MSPs have been told.
If the UK is forced to quit the European Union on March 29 with no agreement in place “things will change, and change very fast for the worse”, Scottish constitutional relations secretary Mike Russell warned.
In a statement at Holyrood, Russell said: “A no-deal Brexit could, we estimate, result in an increase in unemployment in Scotland of around 100,000 people, more than doubling the unemployment rate. We would go from a record low to a level not far off that at the depths of the last recession, with all the human costs which that would entail.”
He added: “Whatever we as a government do, and we will do everything we can, we simply could not avoid that sort of damage being done to our economy and our country. But one person could - the Prime Minister could.”
Scottish finance secretary Derek Mackay will publish a new paper on the economic cost of a no-deal Brexit later this week.
Tobias Ellwood MP, defence minister, has said the hard-Brexit European Research Group were “coming to the point where they are tarnishing the brand of the [Conservative] party.”
Speaking on Sky News, he added that he wants to remain in a “compassionate and outward looking party” that is “inclusive” and “attractive to the next generation”.
“That is not possible with the European Research Group working as a block.. not as individuals but as a block ... We must not allow that branding to poison moderate perspective centre right Conservative party.”
Updated
Labour’s leader Jeremy Corbyn has issued a defiant message to the seven MPs who resigned from his party, reminding them they were elected to carry out the party’s manifesto.
He said the group – who broke away from the party on Monday – “were elected to carry out those policies”.
The Labour leader was speaking at the annual conference of the manufacturers’ group Make UK. It was his first public appearance since the breakaway MPs announced their departure.
A protester has been charged with harassment after MP Anna Soubry was taunted outside Parliament.
James Goddard, 29, was accused of two counts of harassment relating to incidents on December 19 and January 7. The Crown Prosecution Service said he is also accused of two public order offences against a police officer.
The self-styled “yellow vest” activist posted a video on Facebook on Tuesday to thank his supporters after being warned he was likely to be remanded in custody when he answered police bail.
“If they do remand me then we will just have to learn from it, go away, do it, come back even stronger,” he said.
Goddard was arrested by the Metropolitan Police on January 12 following claims that Soubry was harassed in Westminster five days earlier.
Corbyn: MPs wrong to claim they're not being consulted
Corbyn is asked by Sky News what the party is doing, or going to do, to retain MPs and stop others from leaving.
He replies that Labour has developed policies that are radical but they are also popular and the party is doing it best to put them forward.
“They are are discussed frequently with parliamentary colleagues and we are making huge progress,” he said.
By contrast to remarks by the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, earlier today about how the party needs to embark on a “massive” listening exercise, Corbyn added that anyone who says they “are not being consulted are not taking up the opportunities that are are open and available to them at all times.”
There is also a question from Heather Stewart of the Guardian who asked if he agrees with his deputy, Tom Watson, that Labour’s front bench needs to diversify to encompass more views.
Corbyn began by saying that he was proud to lead the Labour party and proud of what it achieved in so many areas of society.
“I recognise that leading the party, you have to take people with you,” he said, adding that he was determined to do that so that the party’s policies can be best represented when an election comes.
“Leading the party means you have to take people with you, “ says Jeremy Corbyn - but his message to the splitters is largely a defiant one - if MPs don’t feel consulted they haven’t been taking up the opportunities offered to them.
— Heather Stewart (@GuardianHeather) February 19, 2019
Updated
Corbyn is now taking questions. The first one is about the departure of the seven MPs and cites their claims that the party is anti-semitic, that he is anti-business and that others are planning to follow Chuka Umunna and co out of the party.
The Labour leader is also asked about when he is going to invoke a call for a second referendum on Brexit.
Corbyn replies that he regrets the MPs left, “because I want our party to be strong, to be united around the polices that we have put forward.
On the question of a second referendum, he cites the Labour frontbench’s recent amendment in parliament which called for a “popular vote” at the end of the process.
He accuses the government of “running down the clock” on Brexit, which he says would be very damaging to the economy.
Corbyn announces details of National Education Service
Jeremy Corbyn has been announcing proposals for a major investment in skills and education.
The Labour leader outlined plans for a national education service which would be available to everyone, “whatever their age, from cradle to grave.”
Speaking at the EEF employers’ group manufacturing conference, Corbyn referred early in his speech to the departure of seven MPs yesterday, saying that he was disappointed that they had failed to get behind a Labour agenda which was in line with the wishes of half a million Labour Party members both inside and outside of parliament and with millions of people around the country.
Quoting Tony Benn’s comments about how education should be like an escalator, Corbyn also announced details of a Commission for Lifelng Learning, which will be jointly chaired by the former Education Sectretary, Estelle Morris, and trade unionist Dave Ward.
“Never again will workers feel discarded,” said Corbyn, who added that it made no sense for people to be only educated for the first quarter of their lives.
“We have to end the outdated grammar school mentality of looking down on someone who does a vocational course and looking up to someone who does an academic course.”
#MFG2019 @jeremycorbyn speaking about no deal brexit being catastrophic for manufacturing then spoke about automotive, steel companies and more #skillsaretheno1initiative #goforinnovation pic.twitter.com/8MaSTmyezu
— Liz Hoskin (@positivelyliz) February 19, 2019
Updated
A circumspect interview by the Japanese ambassador to the UK, Koji Tsuruoka, has yielded a few lines on the BBC’s World at One.
Perhaps it was what he didn’t say that was most interesting though when he was asked about a report this week in the Financial Times that Japanese officials had accused Jeremy Hunt and Liam Fox of taking a “high-handed” approach towards a post-Brexit free trade deal, and briefly considered cancelling bilateral talks due to take place this week.
The FT cited unnamed officials in Tokyo who reacted with dismay to a letter sent on 8 February in which Hunt, the foreign secretary, and Fox, the international trade secretary, insisted that “time is of the essence” in securing a trade deal with Japan, the world’s third-biggest economy.
“I don’t think there was any kind of emotional offensiveness in the terms of the letter,” he said, while stopping short of saying that the report was untrue.
Pressed on whether he was telling his government that British politics was “stable,” he said: “Predictability is a very important element. That is why uncertainty has caused a lot second thoughts about continuing business in the UK,” he said.
“We have told both the EU and the UK government that Brexit should not damage the stable economic environment that we all enjoy today.”
The lack of predicability.. the lack of what may happen next is a real problem,” said the ambassador who repeated his prime minister’s support for the deal negotiated with Brussels by Theresa May.
“He also said very clearly that no deal should also be avoided.”
Updated
Honda decisions shows how much is at stake - Business Secretary
Uncertainty over Britain’s exit from the European Union must be ended so that businesses can have clarity about the future, business minister Greg Clark has said.
Speaking hours after Honda said it would close its car plant in Britain, Clark told the EEF employers’ group manufacturing conference: “Decisions like Honda’s this morning demonstrate starkly how much is at stake.”
“This news comes on top of months of uncertainty that you as manufacturers have had to endure about Brexit, about our future relationship with the EU,” said Clark.
“A situation in which our manufacturers do not have the certainty they need about the terms under which two thirds of our trade will be conducted in 40 days time is unacceptable - it needs to be brought to conclusion and without further delay.”
He added: “We will go on making sure that the argument that manufacturers put for a deal to be concluded swiftly is something that is heard loud and clear,” he said.
Updated
The number of EU workers in the UK fell by 61,000 at a time when the employment rate for British and non-EU workers has soared, according to new official figures which have been seized on by figures from opposing sides of the Brexit divide.
There was an estimated 2.33 million workers from the European Union between October to December in 2017, but that figure dropped to 2.27 million a year later. A notable drop in workers from eight eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004 had largely accounted for the decrease.
This contrasted with an increase in the number of non-EU workers in the UK, jumping from 1.16 million to 1.29 million in the same time period. This was an increase of 130,000 compared with the equivalent period 12 months earlier, and the highest number the highest number since records started in 1997.
Rosie Duffield, Labour MP and a leading supporter of People’s Vote, said: “The uncertainty over Brexit means it is sadly no surprise that tens of thousands of EU nationals have left Britain over the past year, and that fewer people want to come here to contribute to our society and our economy. Brexit is already damaging our NHS, our universities and industry and means less money for public services.
Overall, The number of people in work in the UK reached a record 32.6 million.
Emma Barr, Head of Communications at the right-leaning Centre for Policy Studies said: “These figures are extremely reassuring. Even as we prepare to leave the EU, the British economy - and British business - is still creating jobs at an enviable rate, with record levels of people in work thanks to our flexible labour market.”
Updated
The health secretary Matt Hancock has been urged to stop private companies from securing NHS contracts, after Labour research found Dozens of new NHS contracts worth £128m are currently out to tender.
Research commissioned by the Labour Party found a total of 26 health service contracts worth more than £128m are currently out to tender, including one worth more than £90 million, reports Aisha Zahid for the Guardian.
Last month in front of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, Matt Hancock MP stated there would be: “no privatisation of the NHS on my watch.”
But Labour is demanding that the health secretary delivers on this statement by ensuring these new NHS contracts are kept in public hands.
The House of Commons Library for Labour identified that the 26 contracts include a new £91m contract for a NHS 111/Clinical Assessment Service in the South East.
Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary, said: “This health secretary’s privatisation credentials become clearer by the day - whether it’s promoting GP at Hand to endorsing private dentistry to now allowing millions of pounds worth of health services contracts to be privatised.
Updated
A warning has been sounded that condition are potentially now favourable for a more formalised Far Right movement to emerge from what is, for now, “a shapeless and leaderless mass of angry people”
Joe Mulhall, a senior researcher at anti-racism organisation, Hope not Hate, suggests that the anti-Muslim activist Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) could yet take on the leadership of such a movement or even do so within Ukip, which has embraced the far right under Gerard Batten.
With trust in politicians and our political system at a low point, there is a ready pool of people who could be attracted to this type of messaging.
Whatever happens with Brexit there is bound to be a narrative of betrayal being advanced by the far right that will likely speak to large numbers of people in the UK and reinforce existing disillusionment.
Regardless, we cannot wait for a traditional, united, far-right umbrella organisation to emerge before we act. We need to start connecting the dots now and to realise that what we’ve seen over the last year is various incarnations of the same threat.
Chris Leslie of the Independent Group has made a first intervention for the new political entity during House of Commons health and social care questions, shoehorning in one of the catchphrases from yesterday’s press conference.
Delays around plans for the long-term funding of adult social care “typify the broken politics in this country,” said Leslie, who was flanked on either side by colleagues Mike Gapes and Angela Smith.
Spotted. A rare new political beast
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) February 19, 2019
The Independent Group make their parliamentary debut in House of Commons health questions from benches over to the.. er.. right of Labour pic.twitter.com/5aJU7SfjuX
Earlier, Health Secretary Matt Hancock sought to make hay out of Labour’s split (splintering?), telling fellow MPs that his Labour shadow, John Ashworth was a “reasonable and sensible man.
“I like him. My politics are probably closer to him than his are to the leader of his party,” said Hancock, to laughter.
Gesturing to the former Labour MPs, he then added: “Why doesn’t he have the gumption to join his friends over there in the Independent Group rather than backing this hard left proto communist?”
MPs have been pressing Health Secretary Matt Hancock on whether adequate supplies of insulin will be available in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
Speaking during questions in the Commons, Hancock said “I am confident that if everybody does what they need to do then the supply of medicines will continue unhindered.”
Vicky Ford, a Conservative, was among a number of MPs who said that constituents had contacted her about supplies of insulin in particular.
Hancock told her that the two major suppliers had prepared stockpiles of double the six weeks which the government had called for when it came to drugs storage for Brexit eventualities.
The government has pledged to look into cases of missed targets after it was revealed that there had been a dramatic rise in hospital admissions for potentially life-threatening eating disorders in the last year.
Health Minister Jackie Doyle Smith was responding to Labour’s Paul Sheriff during questions in the House of Commons, where the latter referred to a Guardian report this week on a growing crisis of young people experiencing anorexia and bulimia.
Sheriff asked that, if prevention was better than cure, why were so many children with eating disorders going to Accident and Emergency departments?
Figures seen by the Guardian show year-on-year rises in hospital visits, with admission numbers more than doubling from 7,260 in 2010-11 to 16,023 in the year to April 2018. The latest figure is up from 13,885 the year before – the highest spike in eight years.
Experts said the surge in numbers was down to the failure of NHS services to tackle anorexia and bulimia at an earlier stage, before people become so unwell that they need to be admitted to hospital.
The Irish writer, Fintan O’Toole, has penned another of his semi-psychoanalytic takes on Brexit.
Writing in the Irish Times, he argues this time that unfolding events indicate that the “harmless eccentrics” which the English have long warmed to have mutated into the “harmful kind”.
When all of this is done – if indeed it ever is done – a question will puzzle historians. How did absurd characters like Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and all those lesser swivel-eyes loons you think must have just have wandered into shot but who turn out to be long-serving Tory MPs, come to exert such influence on the fate of nations?
They will have to grapple with a strange phenomenon – the way the English love of eccentricity turned sour.
Michael Gove told the National Farmers’ Union’s annual conference in Birmingham that reports that Britain would operate a zero tariff regime was “not accurate”.
“It will not be the case that we will have zero rate tariffs on food products, there will be protection for agriculture and food,” Gove said.
He warned that British farmers could be locked out of the EU from 30th March in the event of no deal.
The NFU has already warned that health and safety audits required on individual food processing plans required by the EU could take six months to complete, effectively locking British farming exporters out of the bloc.
Gove today confirmed this pointing out the EU had, with six weeks not classified the UK as a “third country” which will only happen after these audits are complete.
“The EU still have not listed the UK as a full third country…as I speak there is no absolute guarantee we will continue to be able to export to the EU,” he told farmers.
He also said that the dangers of no deal would not be removed if, in future, a trade deal was sealed between the UK and the EU.
Once tariffs are imposed by the EU on British exports “it will be difficult to reestablish that market access even if tariffs reduced in the future.”
He also admitted that there in the event of no deal there will be delays in Calais as fresh food exports and animals will all be subject to mandatory checks.
Tariffs will be used on food imports to protect farmers - Gove
A bit of a bombshell has been dropped by Michael Gove in his speech to farmers.
BREAKING: Britain WILL apply rate tariffs on food imports to protect farmers, Michael Gove has revealed.
— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) February 19, 2019
Press reports on zero tariffs over weekend are "not accurate".
"It will not be the case that we will have zero rate tariffs on food products," he has just told NFU conf
Ahead of the speech, there have also been warnings that high tariffs on beef and lamb imposed after the UK’s departure could wipe out some farmers who rely on exports to the EU.
The government is to announce its proposals for tariffs in a no-deal scenario this month.
Brexit causing "palpable decline" in UK influence - report
Brexit is already leading to a “palpable decline” in British influence at the UN, and that influence would be in freefall but for the UK’s commitment to spend 0.7 % of gross national income on overseas aid, a study has found.
The report by the UK branch of the United Nations Association suggests Britain will lose political capital on the 15-member UN security council and the larger general assembly in New York because its campaigns will no longer be automatically aligned with those of the EU.
Based on more than 40 interviews, on and off the record, with current and previous UN-based diplomats, the report suggests the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, will need to work harder to highlight a more value-based diplomacy, and a commitment to multilateralism, to retain the UK’s traction.
It says few overseas diplomats regard the phrase “Global Britain” as anything other than a slogan for domestic consumption.
(Full story)
The Guardian’s Lisa O’Carroll has been tweeting from the National Farmers’ Union annual conference, which is being addressed by the environment secretary, Michael Gove.
He called on farmer to put pressure on their MPs to vote for the deal which Theresa May has negotiated with Brussels.
Gove: "Let no-one be any doubt how difficult and damaging it would be for British farming. "
— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) February 19, 2019
"Critical" that "no one [in Westminster] can be blind or blase about the consequences.."
Tells farmers they must put pressure on their MPs to vote for the deal.
Also, there was this insight into how Gove kicks back when he clocks out of the office:
Gove's pint of choice?
— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) February 19, 2019
Milk, he tells NFU
"At the end of a long hard day at Defra I’m always happy to raise a pint of full cream milk to thank them [dairy farmers"
Updated
Umunna hopes to see new party by end of year
Chuka Umunna has said he hopes a new party will be created by the end of the year, after he and six other MPs quit Labour citing anger at the party’s Brexit policy and the issue of antisemitism.
Umunna hinted that he expected more MPs, including some from the Conservative party, to depart in the coming days and weeks.
“I would like to see us move as quickly as possible and certainly by the end of the year, but that’s my personal view,” he told ITV. “There needs to be an alternative, so that’s perfectly possible. But I don’t get to determine this.”
Umunna – who quit the party alongside Luciana Berger, Mike Gapes, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey – said moderate Conservatives had “become demoralised by the Ukip-isation of their party and their position on Europe”.
At least two Tory MPs are believed to be seriously considering their position in the party and more could follow them, with names including Sarah Wollaston, Heidi Allen and Nick Boles.
Other Labour MPs on Monday night suggested their response would be governed by the reaction of the party leadership. “Frank Field left Labourover bullying six months ago,” MP Neil Coyle said.
Updated
A man who worked at the Honda plant in Swindon for more than two decades has directly linked its impending closure to Brexit, describing the government’s handling of the UK’s imminent departure from the EU as “idiocy of epic proportions.”
There’s a clip of him which which is rapidly going viral..
Man who worked at Honda for 24 years calls #Brexit:
— Mike Galsworthy (@mikegalsworthy) February 19, 2019
“idiocy of epic proportions”
pic.twitter.com/6Ehm7mLRIr
Somehow I suspect we’re going to be hearing more from him in the next 48 hours.
Updated
West Streeting, Labour Ilford North in Essex, has given this reaction to those comments from earlier by John McDonnell about the need for Labour to engage in a “massive listening exercise.”
A little less conversation a little more action please. Kick out the racists. This isn’t complicated. https://t.co/22t4Gi0e2E
— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) February 19, 2019
The environment secretary, Michael Gove, has just started to speak at the National Farmers’ Union annual conference, where he is expected to pledge that British food standards will not be lowered “in pursuit of trade deals”.
Gove’s office also guided ahead of the speech that he will vow to minimise the risk that food producers will be left at “competitive disadvantage” in the face of cheaper imports that are below EU standards.
A no-deal Brexit is the “stuff of nightmares” for British farmers, National Farmers’ Union president Minette Batters warned this morning.
She said it was “absolutely shocking” that with five weeks to go until Brexit, it was not clear to farmers what trade conditions they would be operating in or what the country’s future agricultural policy would look like.
It was also not clear whether fruit, flowers and vegetable growers would have access to a sizeable global seasonal workers scheme.
“I make no apology for saying that leaving the EU without a deal would be a catastrophe for British farming,” she told the NFU annual conference in Birmingham.
Michael Gove will address the National Farmers’ Union, whose president is deeply concerned about Brexit. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA
The business secretary, Greg Clark, has pulled out of a planned speech at manufacturers’ organisation EEF’s conference in London.
He is expected to make a Commons statement on the Honda closure instead. Richard Harrington, a junior minister at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, will take Clark’s place at the conference.
Updated
On defector-watch, Rob Powell of Sky News passes on a fairly blunt dismissal by Tory back bencher Nick Boles of suggestions that he’s considering joining Umunna and co.
Pretty clear cut from @NickBoles on rumours he may quit the Tories and join the new independent grouping of MPs:
— Rob Powell (@robpowellnews) February 19, 2019
“It’s bollocks”
The Huffpost had reported that the ex-minister, who has been threatened with deselection by his local Conservative party, had declined to rule out joining The Independent Group.
Other polling being poured over today are the findings by Survation (first out of the traps last night) that some eight percent of voters would support a Centrist Party opposed to Brexit
On whether the seven Labour MPs were right to set up a new 'Independent Group':
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) February 18, 2019
They were right: 56%
They were not right: 20%
via @Survation, 18 Feb
The full tables of that polling for the Daily Mail are here.
Some reaction now to those McDonnell comments, which some commentators are viewing as a change in tone
Interesting change in tone from Labour today
— steve hawkes (@steve_hawkes) February 19, 2019
John McDonnell talking about need to listen
Andy McDonald saying situation has to be handled with care
Good. Must be a listening & learning exercise @johnmcdonnellMP Keep the party together... https://t.co/60VG6cVQXJ
— Ayesha Hazarika (@ayeshahazarika) February 19, 2019
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell promises "a massive listening exercise" after warnings more MPs could quit the Labour Partyhttps://t.co/RFXabfnKMm pic.twitter.com/U8EhpH2x5x
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) February 19, 2019
Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, and the attorney-general, Geoffrey Cox, are expected to return to Brussels on Wednesday, after two hours of talks over the backstop with the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, on Monday.
It is understood that Cox laid out what he would need to revise his legal opinion. The two sides are exploring the possible legal means to reconcile the gap between the Irish protocol’s description of the backstop as “temporary” and its “indefinite” legal effect.
Downing Street is banking on a change in Cox’s legal opinion persuading Brexiters to back the deal. But there appears to be little hope of the withdrawal agreement itself being reopened as promised by the prime minister in January in response to the historic defeat of her deal with the EU by 230 votes.
In an interview with Politico, Hunt said he expected a significant breakthrough in the next few days, insisting it would be “definitely more than a clarification” while falling short of a rewriting of the withdrawal agreement.
The prime minister has until now been demanding a time limit on the backstop, a unilateral exit mechanism or its replacement with alternative arrangements.
Renewed pressure on the British government is coming from the EU this morning as France’s European Affairs Minister warned that an extension to Article 50 would only happen if there was a substantial shift in opinion within parliament.
Nathalie Loiseau says EU awaits "precise proposals" from Mme May, but there will be no re-negotiation of the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) February 19, 2019
Updated
McDonnell: Labour needs "mammoth, massive listening exercise
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said that Labour needs “a mammoth, massive listening exercise” and to address some of those criticisms that have been made of the party.
But he played down suggestions that as many as 36 Labour MPs had been considering a split.
“I don’t think there is that scale, but the key issue for us - and it was made clear at the Parliamentary Labour Party, Tom Watson said it and others - the Labour leadership, and I’m part of that, we need to keep listening, bring people in, talk to them,” he told Sky News.
McDonnell said the “only disagreement we have had within the party is around how we handle Brexit and I think we are bringing people together on that.”
Updated
Jeremy Hunt has seized on Labour’s split, claiming to European foreign ministers it proved that only concessions to win round Conservative rightwingers will get the Brexit deal through the Commons.
The Guardian Brussels Bureau Chief, Dan Boffey, is reporting that the foreign secretary privately counselled his EU counterparts that the opposition could not be relied upon, even if the government pivoted to backing a customs union.
The peeling away of seven MPs from the Labour party was said by Hunt during a frenetic day of lobbying in Brussels Monday to illustrate that the Brexit deal would only be saved by addressing Tory and DUP concerns about the “indefinite” nature of the Irish backstop, which could keep the UK in a customs union to avoid a hard Irish border.
A full story will be live shortly.
The 1980s revival isn’t being welcomed in all quarters however.
And now Derek Hatton’s back. Motor industry going down the tubes, bin strikes. The Specials at number 1. I’m starting to worry about The Falklands.
— Claire 🛸 (@claireahall) February 18, 2019
The process of selecting a Labour candidate to replace Chuka Umunna will begin next week in Streatham, according to an email which the Red Roar website says has been sent out to members by Labour chairman Ian Lavery.
Labour will start selecting a replacement candidate for Chuka Umunna next week says Labour's chairman Ian Lavery in an email to members in Streatham. pic.twitter.com/FLMFAFT40V
— The Red Roar (@TheRedRoar) February 19, 2019
So what do voters make of the Labour breakaway? Well, some initial polling suggests that a third of labour backers are behind them
YouGov poll shows a third of 2017 Labour voters think MPs were right to quit the partyhttps://t.co/MyRQf0KB5C pic.twitter.com/AlBcOk9eum
— Matt Chorley (@MattChorley) February 19, 2019
The Guardian’s Josh Halliday was on the ground yesterday meanwhile speaking to constituents of Angela Smith about her decision to leave Labour. It wasn’t always pretty reading for the South Yorkshire MP.
“Good riddance,” said Mick Drewry, 66, breaking off from a game of snooker as the news was replayed on a television screen nearby. “Come the next election I’d already made my mind up – I just can’t vote for Angela Smith.”
Drewry, a retired steelworker, has always voted for Labour but said Smith and others had consistently undermined Jeremy Corbyn. “She certainly doesn’t support Jeremy Corbyn – she’s made that plain,” he said.
Smith, the former shadow leader of the Commons, has long been a Corbyn critic, putting her at odds with many local Labour members. In November, she lost a vote of no confidence held by her local constituency Labour party and blamed the result on a “cabal of hard-left” activists.
Following Smith’s announcement, the local party said the MP should “take the honourable path” and resign her seat to trigger a byelection, allowing Labour “to move on and challenge her at the ballot box”.
Updated
The Business Secretary Greg Clark has put out a statement on Honday, in which he sought to highlight the company’s stated reasons -- not Brexit -- for the closure
“As Honda have said, this is a commercial decision based on unprecedented changes in the global market,” he said.
Needless to say, there is intense skepticism about that rationale, not least from workers at the plant who have been linking the closure to Brexit.
There’s rolling coverage of what has been happening with Swindon on our business blog.
The Shadow Business Secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey has said she recognised that the decision of the several MPs to leave party was “agonising.”
However, she insisted on the need for a “united front” at a time when the “Conservative government was bungling Brexit,” while crime, poverty and homelessness were rising.
“Whatever people’s concerns are with our politics or the decisions that any of our front bench colleagues made on things we need to have those discussions within the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). But we also have a duty to unify,” she told the BBC.
Long-Bailey also went on the offensive against the government over the Honda’s Swindon closure. While the company has said that the closure was not related to Brexit, the MP said that it was important to get to the bottom of the factors behind the decision.
The failure of the government to put forward an industrial strategy that supported car manufacturers and others could be one factor, she added.
Join us, Umunna tells other MPs
The new ‘Independent Group’ of former Labour MPs is inviting anybody who wants to fix Britain’s “broken politics” to come and join them, Chuka Umunna has said.
That includes Tory MPs who were fed up with what he described as the “Ukipisation” of the Conservative Party, he told the BBC’s Today programme.
The south London MP, perhaps the most high profile of the several who split from Labour on Monday, came under pressure to rebuff suggestions that the new group was essentially standing on a ‘negative’ rather than a ‘positive’ platform. In other words, they oppose Brexit and “don’t like” Jeremy Corbyn and his team.
Not at all, replied Umunna, who insisted that they wanted to provide an alternative that voters were crying out for, not that a new political party was immediately in the offing.
“This is day two, we have only just left the Labour party. We need an alternative but you can’t cook that up in the committee rooms of Westminster,” he said.
“We don’t deny we want to present people with a new alternative. It could be a new party. it could be a movement,” he said later in the interview.
Umunna said that he and the others who had departed from Labour had faced a moral dilemma where they could not longer support the Labour leader and work to put him in power.
The MP rejected suggestions that the new group was, “at best,” a distraction from the broader campaign against Brexit, which he has been a key part of through the moves to press for a second referendum.
“It’s quite clear that we had exhausted any capacity to do that [within Labour],” he said.
In a reference to some of the rows over national security policy that have engulfed Labour in recent years, Umunna also said that he and his colleagues had had a particular issue with the narratives of states hostile to the UK finding favour with some in Labour.
Earlier, Umunna told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “We are not the SDP. This is a different century.”
Asked when the group of MPs could evolve into a new centre party with a name and more members, he said: “I would like to see us move as quickly as possible and certainly by the end of the year, but that’s my personal view.”
He added: “There needs to be an alternative, so that’s perfectly possible. But I don’t get to determine this.”
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Honda confirms shut down in Swindon
Honda has confirmed plans to shut its factory in Swindon in 2021 with the loss of 3,500 jobs.
The decision is not Brexit related, the BBC’s Today Programme has been told by Ian Howells of Honda.
“We are in a position where out investment and focus needs to go somewhere else, it can’ be in the UK,” he said, blaming the move on the ‘global outlook’.
In a statement, the Japanese firm told workers it proposed to close the vehicle manufacturing plant at the end of the current model’s production lifecycle.
The plant currently produces 150,000 cars a year.
The statement said: “This proposal comes as Honda accelerates its commitment to electrified cars, in response to the unprecedented changes in the global automotive industry.
“The significant challenges of electrification will see Honda revise its global manufacturing operations, and focus activity in regions where it expects to have high production volumes.”
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Someone who has been going in the opposite direction to the seven Labour MPs who quit the party yesterday is Derek Hatton, the former deputy leader of Liverpool City Council.
Speaking after it was reported he had formally been readmitted to the Labour Party 34 years after being expelled, the former key figure in the Militant Tendency told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
“Of course it’s good to be back, in fact in a way I’ve never left.
“For 34 years I’ve stayed absolutely solid with the Labour Party. Never joined any other party, never actually voted for another party. Never campaigned for another party. “
“And, believe you me, during the times of the Blair era, the Iraq war, the ending of clause four, etc, it wasn’t easy, and it was tempting to go.
“And that’s why when you look at the seven who now have left you think, well, how pathetic is it, how really strong are you within the Labour movement to want to run away when there is something that you disagree with?”
There’s a memorable cameo by Hatton in this clip of Neil Kinnock speaking at Labour’s 1985 conference (it was already being shared yesterday on social media) where the then leader took aim at Militant.
As Derek Hatton returns to the Labour Party, here is Neil Kinnock taking on the Militant Tendency in Bournemouth, 1985
— Tides Of History (@labour_history) February 18, 2019
"I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises..." pic.twitter.com/trW9ebG1o7
In terms of analysis and opinion pieces today, the Times has one from Rachel Sylvester who warns that both the Conservatives and Labour are ‘on the brink’ because of divisions.
She writes:
In these uncertain times, one thing is clear: there is a gap in the political market on the centre ground. The new independent group of MPs is the first step towards it being filled.
In the Guardian, Polly Toynbee recalls her own role in the formation of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) but describes yesterday’s split as a “dangerous distraction” at a time when all efforts should be behind opposing Brexit:
Seven is a pitifully small number. The timing is monstrously badly judged and the reasons the MPs give are oddly scattergun, lacking political punch and focus.
The Labour MP, Chris Bryant, writes in the New Statesman on why he will not be leaving the party:
Unless politics is just about listening to the sound of your own voice or getting something of your chest, you have to work with others to get results. We achieve far more, as they say, by our common endeavour, than by going it alone.
Sometimes that means not just putting up with strange bedfellows for a while, but shacking up long-term with people you don’t always agree with or even like.
Monday’s split by several Labour MPs is prominent on the front pages this morning.
Most Fleet Street titles lead with Labour deputy leader Tom Watson’s warning to Jeremy Corbyn that more resignations will follow if he doesn’t bring change to the party.
Among them, the Mirror might have scooped the headline of the day:
Tuesday’s MIRROR: Splitting headache #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/mQeOa06YRA
— Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) February 18, 2019
And from an editorial viewpoint that has been particularly supportive of the Labour leadership, here’s the Morning Star’s take:
Tuesday’s front: The insignificant seven – Labour quitters shirk by-election calls as new group descends into chaos pic.twitter.com/pIsxXOqneA
— Morning Star (@M_Star_Online) February 18, 2019
Here’s an overall round up of what the papers say:
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Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s liveblog coverage politics liveblog. We’ll be bringing you rolling coverage of events and stories including the continuing fallout on day two of the split from Labour by seven MPs.
It’s also a day where Brexit once again looms as the Brexit secretary briefs the cabinet on the latest talks with Brussels and uncertainty about Britain’s relationship with Europe is being blamed for Honda’s decision to announce the closure of its Swindon car plant with the loss of 3,500 jobs.
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is expected to focus on Brexit during a speech (1330) at the EFF manufacturers organisation.
Other speakers include Business Secretary Greg Clark (1200) and Chancellor Philip Hammond.
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