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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Farage says remainers have been 'radicalised' after he is hit with milkshake - live news

Afternoon summary

  • Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, has said that normal campaigning is becoming impossible because some remainers have been “radicalised”. (See 2.42pm.) He was speaking after a milkshake was thrown at him as he campaigned in Newcastle. According to the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope, Farage wants the person who threw the milkshake at him to be charged with assault.

The attack has been condemned by Downing Street and by some of Farage’s other political opponents. (See 4.10am.)

The UK government stands firmly against torture and does not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment for any purpose. Our policy and activities in this area are in accordance with both domestic and international law.

Mordaunt said the new document, released in response to a freedom of information request, dated from 2018 and did not introduce any “substantial changes” from previous policy. But she also said the wording of the current guidance on this matter was being reviewed.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Workers at two government departments, including cleaners and caterers, will launch a fresh campaign of strikes on Tuesday in disputes over pay and conditions. As the Press Association reports, members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) at the Foreign Office (FCO) will walk out for two days, while workers at the Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Department (BEIS) will take action for four days. The dispute at the FCO involves Interserve, which the union accuses of making “repeated blunders” on pay, while PCS says ISS and Aramark are refusing to pay the London living wage.

Sky’s Beth Rigby has a useful tweet on divisions in the Tory leadership race.

Off the top of my head, here are a few other questions that are likely to matter in the leadership contest, with different candidates taking different views.

A pact with the Brexit party? (Esther McVey would not rule one out, see 2.47pm, although Nicky Morgan has said it would be a death knell for the party.)

Holding an early election? (There is not much enthusiasm for one in the party, but some candidates might be more willing to rule one out than others.)

Increasing defence spending? (In truth, the division will be more about, by how much? Jeremy Hunt wants to double it.)

Cutting taxes? (Again, the division will be about how firmly this can be promised, and by how much. Dominic Raab is already talking about a penny of the basic rate.)

Banning Huawei from 5G infrastructure contracts?

These are from ITV’s Daniel Hewitt, who’s been covering a Brexit party rally in Wakefield.

Gordon Brown’s office has tweeted this joke from his speech at the Labour rally earlier.

Ray Bassett was one of the senior Irish diplomats advising Bertie Ahern’s government the during the run up to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement peace deal for Northern Ireland in 1998. Bassett then served as Irish joint secretary to the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference in Belfast between 2001 and 2005, just prior to the signing of the second major peace deal between unionism and nationalism - the St Andrews Agreement. He also served as an ambassador, but after leaving the Republic’s Department of Foreign Affairs stunned some of his former colleagues by turning against the EU and getting involved with the Eurosceptic Irish Freedom party.

Today Bassett claims that Irish/EU pressure leading to Theresa May not getting a deal she could sell will result in a real Brexiter entering 10 Downing Street. On his Facebook page the former senior Irish diplomat warns:

With the imminent ending of Theresa May’s leadership of the British Conservative party, and also [her time] as prime minister, the Irish government should reflect on the part they played in her, and indeed moderate Conservatism’s, demise in our neighbour. The likely prospect now seems that Boris Johnston will be the next PM of the UK, or Dominic Raab.

The failure to give the UK a reasonable deal in the withdrawal agreement politically killed off May and those around her. It was extremely short sighted to place all Ireland’s eggs in the Brussels basket. We needed a good deal for Britain, in our own interests, but the EU Commission needed to teach the deserting Brits a lesson. It was a repeat of the fiasco of the Cameron renegotiation, where our political establishment’s excessive Europhilia trumped the national interest. A sad day for Ireland.

Three in five British voters say politics in Westminster and Brussels is broken, according to a poll that finds pro- and anti-Brexit parties are running neck and neck ahead of the European elections on Thursday, my colleague Mark Rice-Oxley reports.

Here is the key chart.

Pro- and anti-Brexit parties are running neck and neck on eve of European elections
Pro- and anti-Brexit parties are running neck and neck on eve of European elections

And here is Mark’s story.

The milkshake attack on Nigel Farage is being widely condemned.

Downing Street has criticised what happened, PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield reports.

The former Labour prime minister Tony Blair has said the attack was “horrible”, the Telegraph’s Harry Yorke reports.

This is from the former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron.

And this is from Brendan Cox, whose Labour MP wife Jo Cox was murdered by a far-right terrorist during the 2016 referendum campaign.

YouGov has released some European elections polling for ITV and Cardiff University showing Labour, which has been the dominant party in Welsh politics for almost a century, on course to come third, behind the Brexit party and Plaid Cyrmu. And the Conservatives are on course to come sixth, also behind the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

Euro elections poll for Wales
Euro elections poll for Wales Photograph: YouGov

Here is an excerpt from Prof Roger Awan-Scully’s write-up for ITV.

These poll results clearly have immediate potential implications for Thursday’s election. But there is a broader historical context here. Since Lloyd George’s victory in the December 1918 general election, there have been 39 Wales-wide electoral contests. The Labour party have come first in 38 of those 39 contests – the sole exception being the 2009 European election when, at the absolute lowest point of Gordon Brown’s unhappy period as prime minister, Labour finished narrowly behind the Conservatives in Wales.

Unless our poll is horribly inaccurate, or Labour stage an astonishing resurgence in the last few days of the European election campaign, we are going to see Labour defeated in Wales for only the second time in the last one hundred years. Mark Drakeford’s first electoral test as Welsh Labour leader will have been failed. We don’t yet know what political implications might follow from such an outcome, but this result in itself would be truly historic.

The Greens have been in touch to clarify their policy on a universal basic income (UBI). (See 10.56am.) At the last general election the Green party was campaigning for a universal basic income - a basic payment to everyone, regardless of whether they are working or not working, rich or poor. In these European elections, the Greens and their fellow EU Green parties are calling for EU legislation forcing member states to guarantee people a minimum income. This would involve top-pay payments going to the poor but, unlike a UBI, it would not involve payments to the rich. The Greens think this a realistic EU aspiration for the near future. They also want UBI to be piloted on an EU-wide basis, but they accept that it would take much longer to introduce this across Europe.

McVey calls for aid spending to be cut and refuses to rule out pact with Brexit party

I’ve just been to see Esther McVey formally launch a new group called Blue Collar Conservatism, an internal party campaign intended to push for policies attracting working voters in former industrial areas, which is also viewed as a vehicle for McVey’s own leadership ambitions.

The ex-work and pension secretary, who left government at the end of last year in protest at Theresa May’s Brexit plans, is seen as an outsider, but as with many of these efforts the aim is as much to push the individual MP’s policy aims and stature in the party.

Speaking in a packed room in parliament – she had made the wise move of both booking a fairly small space and removing all the chairs – McVey said the Conservatives must take votes from those who felt abandoned by Labour, in part by delivering Brexit quickly.

If that sounds a bit like the Brexit party, there were definite similarities, not least a video featuring uplifting music, the views of annoyed voters and a claim that Labour has abandoned working class people. In a brief Q&A afterwards, McVey declined to say whether she would ever work with Nigel Farage’s party.

The main policy specific was to pare back overseas aid funding to 2010 levels and to spend what Mcvey said would be the left over £7bn a year on schools and the police.

There were some hiccups more reminiscent of Change UK than the Brexit party – the first video took some lengthy laptop key-pressing to start, while McVey mis-read her script and referred to having to “clear up the mess that was left by the Conservatives” but the event saw a fair turnout of fellow Tory MPs.

McVey also made it clear that she would only back a die-hard Brexiter to replace May, Asked whether someone like Jeremy Hunt or Sajid Javid would suffice, she said it had to be someone who “believes in Brexit with a passion”.

Esther McVey launches Blue Collar Conservatism at the Houses of Parliament
Esther McVey launches Blue Collar Conservatism at the Houses of Parliament Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Farage says normal campaigning 'becoming impossible' because 'remainers have become radicalised'

Here is my colleague Matthew Weaver’s story about Nigel Farage being hit with a milkshake in Newcastle.

Farage has posted this message on Twitter about the incident.

This is the first time I’ve heard Farage talk about losers’ consent - a concept that it very well explained in this Twitter thread from Richard Wyn Jones, a professor of Welsh politics. Jones argues that Welsh devolution has been successful because, after a very narrow vote for devolution in 1997, Labour made an effort to obtain losers’ consent to ensure wide support for the assembly that was set up. He posted this Twitter thread to make a point about Brexit, where, he argues, the government has singularly failed to make an effort to accommodate the concerns of remainers.

Even though Farage has used the term, it is not apparent that he understands the concept. He is using it to say remainers should just accept Brexit. Jones is arguing that remainers consent would only be forthcoming if the government adopted a softer version of Brexit - something that would appal Farage. (He thinks Theresa May’s Brexit, which would involve being outside the single market and the customs union, is too soft, and is pushing for no-deal as the only proper Brexit.)

Farage is also not someone who has shown much willingness to grant losers’ consent himself. Famously, before the 2016 referendum he said that if leave lost narrowly, he would be pushing for a further referendum.

Updated

Barnier says EU has offered UK 'all options' on Brexit

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has been in Cyprus where he has warned that the bloc is preparing for a no-deal – even if it is a scenario that would not be of its choice. He told journalists:

We have offered all options to the United Kingdom, from the single market to the customs union or a free trade agreement. We are now waiting for clarity from the United Kingdom. In the meantime, we keep preparing for a no-deal. This is not, and will not be, the EU’s choice. It is for the UK to take its responsibilities.

The withdrawal agreement remained the country’s only way to securing an orderly transition, if it still wanted to leave, he told a press conference after flying to the island to especially discuss Brexit with the island’s president Nicos Anastasiades. Cyprus has two British military bases – a legacy of its colonial era – whose post-Brexit future has been the focus of talks.

“Today the fundamental choices in front of the United Kingdom remain the same: deal, no-deal, no Brexit,” Barnier said.

Whatever happens and whatever the political situation in the UK, the issues and solutions remain the same.

Let me be clear: if the UK still wants, ratifying the withdrawal agreement is the only way to secure a transition period. That period of transition would give the United Kingdom time to sort out its negotiation positions. This transition period would also give time to both sides to figure out what specific arrangements are necessary in relation to the Northern Irish border on top of the overall EU/UK relationship.

Michel Barnier (left) with the Cypriot foreign minister, Nikos Christodoulidis
Michel Barnier (left) with the Cypriot foreign minister, Nikos Christodoulidis Photograph: -/AFP/Getty Images

Electoral Commission to visit Brexit party offices to check it is complying with electoral law

The Electoral Commission has said it will visit the Brexit party offices tomorrow to check it is complying with the electoral law about donations, the BBC’s Jessica Parker reports.

Brown says SNP pushing 'far more extreme' version of Scottish independence than in 2014

Gordon Brown has accused the Scottish National party of pursuing a “far more extreme” version of independence than it has before, as he sought to shore up Labour’s fragile vote in Thursday’s European elections.

He told a Labour election rally in Glasgow, where he failed to answer any questions from the media or party members, that the SNP had now abandoned the “soft independence” pursued by Alex Salmond, the then first minister, during the 2014 independence referendum.

Then Salmond had wanted to leave the so-called political or parliamentary union between Scotland and the rest of the UK, but retain the monetary union by keeping the pound, and staying in the so-called social union by sharing pensions and some welfare powers.

However, the SNP’s spring conference narrowly voted to pursue leaving sterling and setting up an independent Scottish currency immediately after a yes vote in any future independence referendum. At the same time, the SNP would retain or seek European Union membership.

Brown told the Labour rally:

Just look at the decisions made by the SNP conference. You know in 2014 Alex Salmond told us we were only leaving the political union. That was all. We were staying in the other unions. Well what is the policy now? It’s a far more extreme version of independence. They have moved, if you like, from soft independence to hard independence. Because they will now leave the British pound, they will leave the UK currency union.

[Of] course they want to stay in the European Union after they leave Britain so they’ll leave the UK customs union as well. They have to leave the UK single market; they will leave the UK social welfare union, so pensions and everything else will have to be decided in Scotland and not decided as part of the UK pension scheme we have all contributed to.

So this is a far more extreme policy that the SNP are now putting forward and people have got to recognise that if you vote for the SNP on Thursday you’re voting to give recognition and legitimacy and credibility to a more extreme form of independence than ever we have seen.

Scottish Labour is desperately worried about a haemorrhage of support from pro-remain voters to the SNP, the Scottish Greens or Liberal Democrats in Thursday’s election. The polls show it is likely to hold only one of its two European parliament seats, with the SNP on course to win three of Scotland’s six places.

Brown sought to shore up support for the party by insisting only Labour wanted to focus on policies which affected ordinary voters’ every day lives such as the NHS, schools and the economy. The SNP and Tories, he said, had:

a constitutional obsession; here you’ve got a never-ending, non-stop Punch and Judy show – the Conservatives versus the SNP, fighting it out over the minutiae of the constitution and ignoring the main issues that affect the people of Scotland.

Gordon Brown at the Labour rally in Glasgow.
Gordon Brown at the Labour rally in Glasgow. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Lunchtime summary

  • David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, has urged Conservative MPs not to vote for Theresa May’s EU withdrawal agreement bill because it would tie the hands of her successor. Davis did vote for May’s deal when it was defeated for the third time, in March, and his decision to revert to opposing it suggests she is at risk of an even bigger defeat at the next vote, in early June. (See 9.20am.) Downing Street said at tomorrow’s cabinet ministers will discuss whether or not to hold indicative votes before the bill’s second reading. (See 11.57am.)
  • Farage has been hit by a milkshake while campaiging in Newcastle. (See 1.25pm.)
Nigel Farage after beint hit with a milkshake during a campaign walkabout in Newcastle.
Nigel Farage after beint hit with a milkshake during a campaign walkabout in Newcastle. Photograph: Tom Wilkinson/PA
  • Brown has accused the SNP of pushing for “hard independence”. (See 9.52am.)
Gordon Brown speaking at a Labour rally in Glasgow, Scotland.
Gordon Brown speaking at a Labour rally in Glasgow, Scotland. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Updated

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has said that leaving the single market would be “catastrophic” for Scotland. Speaking ahead of a visit to a fish processing plant in Aberdeen with SNP MEP candidate Christian Allard, she said:

The free movement of goods and people across Europe is vital for Scotland’s economic success. But those benefits that we all enjoy are plunged into peril by Brexit.

The EU accounts for more than half of Scottish exports - worth £15.7bn to our economy. Blocking Scotland from trading freely with the European Union post-Brexit will be catastrophic to businesses here.

Updated

Nigel Farage hit by milkshake in Newcastle

Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, has been hit by a milkshake while campaigning in Newcastle. These are from the Newcastle Chronicle’s Sean Seddon.

Gordon Brown, the Labour former prime minister, with Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour leader, at an election campaign rally at the Lighthouse, Glasgow, this morning.
Gordon Brown, the Labour former prime minister, with Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour leader, at an election campaign rally at the Lighthouse, Glasgow, this morning. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Here are some tweets from journalists attending the launch of Esther McVey’s Blue Collar Conservatism campaign.

Farage claims Brown's call for investigation into Brexit party funding is 'disgusting smear'

Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, has described Gordon Brown’s call for the Brexit party to be subject to an Electoral Commission investigation into the source of its funding as an “absolutely disgusting smear”. Farage told BBC News:

This from the man who was part of a Labour party that, through Lord Levy, were, shall we say, making a lot of big donors members of the House of Lords. How dare he?

Most of our money has been raised by people giving £25 to become registered supporters. And over 100,000 - nearly 110,000 - of them now have done that. And, frankly, this smacks, I think, of jealousy, because the other parties simply can’t do this.

Nigel Farage
Nigel Farage Photograph: BBC News

Updated

Heidi Allen, Change UK’s interim leader, will apply for an emergency debate later on revoking article 50.

Sajid Javid, the home secretary, gave a speech this morning in which he said he would use a new power to ban British nationals from entering or remaining in parts of conflict-stricken Syria. As my colleague Jamie Grierson reports, Javid was asked about his own leadership ambitions at the event. Javid was even less forthcoming than Matt Hancock. (See 9.42am.) He said:

The prime minister has said she will step down, when she does there will be no shortage of candidates and whether I’m one of them, you’ll have to wait and see.

Updated

This is from my colleague Severin Carrell, who is at at the Labour event in Glasgow where Gordon Brown has been speaking.

Change UK and the Brexit party have spent more on Facebook advertising than any other party in the lead-up to the European elections, new figures show. As the Press Association reports, data from the social media network showed Change UK spent a total of £107,442 on the platform in the 30 days from April 19. Nigel Farage’s party - currently leading in several polls - spent £95,222 over the same period, which ran until May 18. The Liberal Democrats were the fourth biggest spenders with £76,102 spent over the period on mostly anti-Brexit ads. The party was behind Facebook itself, which spent £86,457 on adverts assuring the public that it was taking action on misinformation.

Cabinet to discuss when indicative votes might be held, No 10 says

I’m just back from the Number 10 lobby briefing. On Brexit - indeed, on most topics - it did not take us much beyond what we already know. Here are the main points.

  • Theresa May is expected to speak to cabinet colleagues today ahead of a cabinet meeting tomorrow where ministers will discuss whether or not to hold so-called indicative votes before the vote on the EU withdrawal agreement bill in the first of June, the prime minister’s spokesman said. But the spokesman would not give any indication as to whether the indicative votes would go ahead before the bill’s second reading debate (as one government leak last week suggested) or not. In his Today interview this morning Matt Hancock, the health secretary, suggested there was no point holding indicative votes before the second reading debate because MPs could express their views through amendments to the bill as it was going through parliament. At lobby the spokesman sidestepped a question about whether May agreed with Hancock on this or not.
  • The spokesman was unable to confirm reports saying May is planning to give a speech defending the Brexit bill this week.
  • The spokesman would not say when the EU withdrawal agreement bill would be published.
  • The spokesman insisted that the bill would amount to a “new, improved deal”. He would not give details, but he said there would be provisions designed to assure MPs the government would be working hard to make sure alternative arrangements to the backstop could be in place by the end of 2020.
  • The spokesman refused to confirm a report claiming that the vote on the bill has been pencilled in for Friday 7 June.
10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

Greens calls for EU-wide legislation for minimum income

Jonathan Bartley, the Green party’s co-leader, told Sky’s All Out Politics this morning that all European Green parties were jointly calling for EU legislation to establish a minimum income across the EU.

The party’s manifesto (pdf) sets this ambition for the European parliament for the next five years:

European framework legislation must enforce, through a minimum income directive passed by the next European parliament, that member states guarantee their citizens a decent minimum income, respecting national social security systems ....

[Green ambition for 2019-2024] Work with member states and stakeholders to establish citizen basic income experiments to understand the viability and practical implementation of establishing a universal basic income for all EU citizens.

Asked why that was necessary, Bartley said the UK was “lagging so far behind when it comes to poverty”. He explained:

If you look at 1.6m emergency food bank parcels being issued last year by the Trussell Trust, if you look at the report from Human Rights Watch today about the state of poverty, and the UN rapporteur who is going to come out on Wednesday, I believe, with a very damning report on the state of poverty - something has to be done.

Bartley said, under the Green plan, the EU would legislate for a minimum income, but it would be up to member states to decide how they implemented it. He said it should be set at 60% of average income - around £17,000 a year in the UK.

And he rejected claims that there was economic evidence showing minimum income laws did not work. He said the Tories said 1m jobs would be lost if the government introduced a minimum wage, but those claims turned out to be untrue.

I’m off to the Number 10 lobby briefing now. I will post again after 11.30am.

UPDATE: The Greens have been in touch to clarify their policy on a universal basic income (UBI). At the last general election the Green party was campaigning for a universal basic income - a basic payment to everyone, regardless of whether they are working or not working, rich or poor. In these European elections, the Greens and their fellow EU Green parties are calling for EU legislation forcing member states to guarantee people a minimum income. This would involve top-pay payments going to the poor but, unlike a UBI, it would not involve payments to the rich. The Greens think this a realistic EU aspiration for the near future. They also want UBI to be piloted on an EU-wide basis, but they accept that it would take much longer to introduce this across Europe. I have amended the post so that it describes what the party is calling for more accurately.

Jonathan Bartley
Jonathan Bartley Photograph: Sky News

Updated

Responding to the extracts from Gordon Brown’s speech released in advance (see 9.52am), the SNP said Brown should apologise to Scotland for campaigning against independence in 2014. Christian Allard, one of the party’s European elections candidates, said:

People in Scotland remember Gordon Brown as playing a key role in the campaign to ensure that we would continue having to live under Tory governments we didn’t vote for - and now that Tory Government is trying to drag Scotland out of the EU against our will.

So if he wants people to even consider listening to Labour on anything, Mr Brown should start by apologising to Scotland for the mess he has helped create.

While Labour are all over the place on Brexit, a vote for the SNP is a vote to stop Brexit.

Change UK could end up fighting general election under new format, Heidi Allen suggests

Change UK has been criticised for not being very clear about its name. When eight Labour MPs and three Tories defected in the Commons, they originally set up as the Independent Group, because they were not a party at that stage. They were also known as TIG (The Independent Group), or the Tiggers. Then they established themselves as a proper party, Change UK, although early in the European elections campaign sometimes they described themselves as the remain alliance.

In an interview on the Today programme this morning Heidi Allen, the party’s interim leader, hinted that further change could be coming. Asked about claims that she could defect to the Liberal Democrats, she ruled that out. But then she said:

Will I stand again in South Cambridgeshire, my constituency, as Change UK? Whatever format, let’s hope we know, depends when the new general election comes, later rather than sooner. If we’ve managed to bring together other MPs from the House of Commons, the format might be slightly different. But, whatever the brand new world party looks like, at that point at the general election in South Cambridgeshire, absolutely, I’m not going back to the Conservatives.

When why she was suggesting Change UK could change its name again, Allen replied:

Because I want us to get bigger. I want us to get more successful, I want us to have more MPs, more opportunities, to change politics in this country ...

I see a modern world of coalition, where it isn’t just about two big parties. I think the whole way that parliament operates at Westminster needs a damn good shake-up, and I want to be part of that.

Heidi Allen, the Change UK interim leader
Heidi Allen, the Change UK interim leader Photograph: Dimitris Legakis/Athena Pictures

Brown to accuse SNP of pushing for 'hard independence'

Gordon Brown, the Labour former prime minister, is speaking at an election campaign event in Glasgow this morning. As the Guardian reports, he will call for an investigation into the Brexit party’s finances.

But he will also claim that Scotland is being let down by the growing intransigence of the SNP and the Conservatives over independence and devolution. In particular, he will accuse the SNP of pushing for “hard independence”. According to extracts from his speech released in advance, he will say:

I fear for the future of Scotland unless it can break free from this non-stop, never-ending, constitution-obsessed SNP/Conservative Punch and Judy show.

Both parties bang on day after day about independence, continuously ratcheting up the decibel levels with their ever-more hard-line policy stances - the SNP for all-out independence, nothing less, that now has become even more extreme with their plans to abandon the British pound and exit the UK customs union and single market - which would not now count as a soft independence, but a hard independence.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives increasingly reveal their hand as hostile to devolution - and because in Scotland they can’t talk about Europe or about their policy for austerity they talk about nothing else than the constitutional issues.

Essentially, we have two parties dug-in for a trench warfare that suits both of them because they have nothing positive to offer on any other issues.

In fact the two parties’ total neglect of the issues that really do affect people - our NHS, our schools, our law and order and our economy - can only have disastrous long-term consequences for the Scottish economy and for Scotland’s public services.

Hancock says new Tory leader should be 'not just for now but also for the future'

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is understood to be planning to stand for the Conservative party leadership. But in an interview on the Today programme this morning, he refused to confirm that he would be a candidate. He told the programme:

It’s flattering that lots of people have asked me to put my name forward and proposed to support me if I do but that isn’t the point, which is we still have to get this legislation to deliver Brexit through.

Asked if he was not announcing his bid because a recent poll of Conservative members put his support at just 1%, he said:

No, because the contest hasn’t started yet.

But, as he continued his answer, Hancock did go on to sum up his pitch for the top job in a sentence. He said:

I have a strong view about the sort of leader that we need - we need a leader not just for now but also for the future, we need to be absolutely four-square in the centre-ground of British politics.

A “leader ... for the future” means “someone young”. Hancock is just 40, meaning that he is the youngest of the cabinet-level contenders for the job.

And someone “in the centre-ground of British politics” means “not a rightwinger”. Most of the leading candidates in the contest are on the right of the party. Hancock himself is more aligned to the centre right, and he will be looking for support from this wing.

Matt Hancock being heckled by a pro-Brexit campaigner outside the Houses of Parliament last week.
Matt Hancock being heckled by a pro-Brexit campaigner outside the Houses of Parliament last week. Photograph: George Cracknell Wright/REX/Shutterstock

May's fresh bid to get Tories to back Brexit bill faltering as David Davis says he's now voting against

Yesterday, in an article for the Sunday Times (paywall), Theresa May said that when MPs vote on the EU withdrawal agreement bill in the first week of June, it would involve a “new, bold offer” with “an improved package of measures” that she hoped would win over some of those MPs who voted against her Brexit deal on the previous three occasions. In interviews this morning, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said that if MPs wanted Brexit to happen, they should vote for the bill at second reading; if they wanted to change the terms of Brexit, they could amend it later, he argued.

But this morning the Daily Telegraph reports (paywall) that it has seen a summary of the bill sent to cabinet ministers last week and that it confirms that all the supposedly new concessions are ones that have been offered already.

A five-page summary of the bill sent to cabinet ministers last week contained no ideas on how to bridge the gap between the Tories and Labour on a possible customs union with the EU, and no fresh thinking on the Northern Irish backstop, which is designed to prevent a hard border in Ireland if no trade deal is agreed.

Instead, it promises to incorporate an idea first proposed by the Tory MP Sir Hugo Swire in January that would give parliament the final say on implementing the backstop, as well as an obligation for the government to “seek” alternative arrangements to the backstop by the end of 2020.

It would also incorporate an amendment first proposed to the third “meaningful vote” in March by the Labour MPs Lisa Nandy and Gareth Snell, which would give parliament a say in what the objectives of future trade negotiations should be.

In an attempt to appease the DUP, on whose votes Mrs May relies for her working majority, the document also says the Northern Ireland assembly - which has been suspended for the past two years - will be given a “role” in any decision over the backstop.

Sir Bill Cash, the Brexiteer Tory MP who has consistently voted against Mrs May’s deal, said: “This is pretty cosmetic stuff. It will not have any effect on leave-supporting MPs and in fact there are votes coming back to our side from people who backed the deal last time.”

Ominously for May, there are signs that the majority against her deal in June could be even bigger than the 58-vote majority against it in the last vote, in March. David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, supported her last time, and in an interview for the BBC’s Week in Westminster on Saturday he said he had not decided what he would do next time. But now he has, and he is voting against. Asked if he would vote for the bill, he told the Today programme this morning:

No. The reason I voted for the last two variants of it is that it had been modified a bit, but what was clear was if we didn’t get that through, there would be a chaotic consequential outcome. And that is what we are seeing now, this chaos.

And the trouble is - Matt [Hancock] was doing a good job of defending the line this morning. But this is not a great new offer; it’s a great new concession. What it will do, and this is the critical thing, is, if we pass that act, it opens things up so that the successor to the prime minister, the next prime minister, will have their hands tied. And I think the next prime minister must have the right to reset the negotiations on their terms.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, holds a walkabout in Exeter. Later he is holding campaign events in Newcastle, Halifax and Horwich.

11am: Downing Street lobby briefing.

11am: Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, speaks at a Labour rally for the European elections in Glasgow.

1pm: Esther McVey, a candidate for the Conservative leadership, launches a Blue Collar Conservatism campaign.

1.45pm: Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, and Molly Scott Cato, the Green MEP candidate, hold a rally in Bristol.

2.30pm: Penny Mordaunt, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons for the fist time.

4pm: David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, gives evidence to the public administration and constitutional affairs committee about the role of parliament in authorising the use of military force.

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

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 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.

Updated

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