Afternoon summary
That is all from me for this afternoon.
If there is any important breaking news later, a colleague will reactivate this blog.
This evening we will be running a separate live blog for the local elections. It is due to launch at 9.30pm, and you will be able to find it here. Colleagues will be writing it during the night, and I will be in at 6am tomorrow morning to pick it up and carry it through all Friday.
Updated
This is from Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt.
View in Whitehall: the leak from the National Security Council is not being referred to the police because a judgment was made that a crime was not committed
— Nicholas Watt (@nicholaswatt) May 2, 2019
This firms up what David Lidington was hinting in the Commons earlier. (See 12.37pm.)
In response to a request from a reader .... here are some dogs at polling stations.
Ruth Davidson says she hopes Labour and government can meet 'somewhere in the middle' on Brexit
The Scottish Conservative conference takes place tomorrow. It will be the moment when Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, returns to frontline politics after her maternity leave, and in an interview to mark that, Davidson said she hoped the government and Labour would compromise in the Brexit talks. She told STV:
I think at the moment there are conversations going on between Labour and the Conservatives in London.
The mood music that is coming out of that room is that there may well be a breakthrough this week and I really want to see it, because we know more than anyone in Scotland that sometimes the divisions after referenda are bigger than the divisions before, and we’ve got into really entrenched positions.
My view through all of this is that we’re going to have to meet somewhere in the middle - between the people who want to overturn the referendum and re-run it and those who want a no-deal Brexit.
There are no local elections in London, but Theresa May has been voting his afternoon at Sonning in her Maidenhead constituency.
According to the Press Association, she did not respond when reporters asked if she would ask the police to investigate the Huawei leak.
Updated
Gavin Williamson is not being asked to leave the privy council, according to briefing notes carried by an aide to David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, and seen by a photographer. These are from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.
Papers snapped by the inimitable @PoliticalPics show document carried by David Lidington say Williamson stays in the privy council pic.twitter.com/PTIKK7FZrQ
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) May 2, 2019
To clarify ! Carried by Lidington’s PPS as they walked along together https://t.co/mmdK0tCQyS
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) May 2, 2019
Updated
YouGov has released some polling today suggesting the Brexit party has a nine-point lead in the European elections. It is on 30%, ahead of Labour on 21%, the Conservatives on 13%, the Lib Dems on 10%, the Green and Change UK on 9% and Ukip on 4%.
The Brexit party, which is led by Nigel Farage, is in many respects the successor party to the Farage version of Ukip that won the 2014 European elections. (The current Ukip is much more rightwing and Islamophobic.) But five years ago Ukip, which got 27% of the vote, was just two points ahead of Labour, on 25%, which in turn was just ahead of the Tories, on 24%.
Updated
Gavin Williamson will received a payoff of around £17,000 after he was sacked as defence secretary, my colleague Rajeev Syal reports.
Gavin Williamson says he wants police investigation to clear his name
Gavin Williamson has renewed his call for a police investigation into the Huawei leak, Sky’s Beth Rigby reports.
NEW: @GavinWilliamson tells me, again, that he would like a police investigation but has no mechanism by which to force one. He told me an investigation would exonerate him because "the reporter's notepad would show that I didn't say anything" and PM would offer an apology 1/
— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) May 2, 2019
.@GavinWilliamson tells me: "Honestly I don't know how I can clear my name unless there's a police investigation. He also reveals he told his private office he'd spoken to @Steven_Swinford when Huawei story appeared, which, he says is hardly the behaviour of someone who leaked 2/
— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) May 2, 2019
As for the sacking. May asked him to resign & then, at his request, left her own office so he could have a few mins to collect his thoughts. He then told her it wasn't him, he wouldn't quit & she'd have to sack him. PM apparently looked visibly shocked & didn't know what to say
— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) May 2, 2019
Lunchtime summary
- David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, has sought to defuse the row generated by Gavin Williamson’s sacking from his post as defence secretary by playing down suggestions he might have broken the Official Secrets Act and rejecting calls for the matter to be referred to the police. But, as he answered a Commons urgent question on the subject, Lidington faced strong criticism from some Tory rightwingers who complained that Williamson had been subject to “kangaroo court” justice. (See 12.37pm.)
- Chris Grayling, the transport secretary has faced fresh calls to resign as he defended the government’s decision to spend around £50m on scrapped contracts to provide ferry services in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Speaking in the Commons, his Labour shadow Andy McDonald said:
Every other week, MPs must debate the transport secretary’s latest costly blunder. I am afraid that this will continue so long as the secretary of state remains in post. This country can no longer afford the secretary of state.
- Plaid Cymru has launched its EU election campaign with leader Adam Price using a speech to call for an independent Wales in Europe. Price said he wanted a future Wales to remain in the EU as a member state, saying Brexit only involved “moving power from one end of the Eurostar to the other.” He went on:
We are a party born of the Welsh nationalist tradition, most certainty. We seek independence for our country. But we want that independence so we can participate directly in the wider world, first and foremost as part of the European family of nations.
- Labour has moved the writ for the Peterborough byelection which will be held on Thursday 6 June.
- Climate change protests across the capital cost police an extra £7m and put a “huge strain” on the force, Britain’s most senior officer has said. As the Press Association reports, over 10 days in April, activists brought parts of London to a standstill, blocking Waterloo Bridge and Oxford Circus, staging a “die-in” at the Natural History Museum, and gluing themselves to objects. At a Scotland Yard briefing, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick revealed that the extra costs of policing the event ran to more than £7m.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has criticised Gavin Williamson over the Huawei leak. Speaking in the Scottish parliament she said:
Obviously it is a matter for the police to determine what criminal investigations they take forward and what the progress of them might be.
It would not be appropriate for me to comment on that but what I would say is politically, that as a politician, I think that it’s reprehensible that there were leaks from the National Security Council and I think it is a sign of the complete dysfunction at the heart of the UK government.
I think any minister that has been found guilty in such a way I think that they lose their job.
All politicians in government should recognise the responsibility and the privileges we carry and should not be behaving in the way it Gavin Williamson appears was behaving - for their own selfish political ends.
Stephen Parkinson, a former deputy head of the attorney general’s office who is now senior partner at the law firm Kingsley Napley, says he does not expect the police to investigate Gavin Williamson. In a comment released to the media he explains:
It is highly unlikely a criminal investigation will be opened. Such an investigation would need the backing of government and a view is likely to be taken that the public interest test has already been met by Williamson’s dismissal. He has paid the price by losing his career.
Earlier I quoted the Sun’s political editor Tom Newton Dunn giving away tricks of the trade about how lobby journalists get ministers to “leak” information to them. (See 10.35am.)
My colleague Gaby Hinsliff, a former political editor of the Observer, has also spilled the beans in a long and interesting Twitter thread starting here.
It starts here.
Look I haven't a clue what Gavin Williamson, or of course Another Mystery Person, said to Steven Swinford but generally: there seems to be some confusion about how leaking happens, so a brief boring thread
— Gaby Hinsliff (@gabyhinsliff) May 2, 2019
And this might be her most important post.
I've had people say to me "I don't know how you got hold of X" & I think 'uh literally from you mate'. Sometimes if you know a person well it's about the face they pull when you ask them did X happen, or the answer they don't give. You might...
— Gaby Hinsliff (@gabyhinsliff) May 2, 2019
Updated
No 10 seeks to rule out police inquiry into Williamson as Tory rightwingers claim he's victim of 'kangaroo court' justice
Here are the main points from the urgent question about Gavin Williamson. The government wheeled out the second most important member of the cabinet, David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister and de facto deputy PM, to respond, which can be seen as an indication of how seriously it is taking this matter. But, despite the best efforts of the opposition, this did not feel like a crisis that is escalating.
Here are the main points.
- Lidington said that the government considered the matter closed and that it was not planning to refer the matter to the police for an investigation as to whether Gavin Williamson broke the Official Secrets Act. He told MPs:
The unauthorised disclosure of any information from government is serious and especially so from the National Security Council.
The prime minister has said she now considers that this matter has been closed and the cabinet secretary [Sir Mark Sedwill] does not consider it necessary to refer it to the police, but we would of course cooperate fully should the police themselves consider that an investigation were necessary.
Lidington’s comment about the government being willing to cooperate with any police inquiry was probably superfluous because the police themselves have said that, without an referral from the Cabinet Office, there won’t be an investigation in the first place. This is what Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, told reporters this morning, around the time the UQ was taking place.
We are not going to comment on that particular case suffice to say if the Cabinet Office were to send us a referral at any point that relates to apparent official secrets or leaks we would assess that. We would scope it and we would go through a very formal gateway process before working on any investigation.
The gateway process has been in place for about six years and a formal decision would be taken by the deputy commissioner but that is hypothetical because we have not had any referral from the Cabinet Office.
She said said that if other people made a complaint relating to official secrets, the Met would look at it, but she said the formal process involved a referral from the Cabinet Office. Asked if police needed permission from the government to launch an inquiry, she said any official secrets would be owned by them and they would hold any evidence relating to them.
It is sitting in the government. We as the police when considering whether there is an appropriate criminal investigation or not will have to be party to that material. At the present time we are not in possession.
- Lidington refused to say whether he thought Williamson did or did not break the law. Asked about this, he told the SNP’s Stewart McDonald:
That is not a judgment that I or any other minister in any government can make. Whether a criminal offence has been committed is a matter of independent prosecution authorities and ultimately for the courts.
But Lidington also told MPs repeatedly that the government was not planning to refer this matter to the police for an adjudication on this.
- But he also played down suggestions that Williamson did break the Official Secrets Act. When the Tory former cabinet minister Oliver Letwin put it to him that there was no leak of classified information in this case, Lidington said: “I don’t want to rush to make that assumption because normally all papers that are considered by the national security council are at an extremely high level of classification.” But he want on to argue that what mattered was that there had been a leak in the first place.
But the key point here ... is that the issue at stake here was less the substance of the material that was disclosed than the principle of a leak from the national security council itself. Because the fact of that leak, that breach of confidentiality having taken place, is what puts at risk the mutual trust which is essential for all ministers and advising attending those meetings.
-
Lidington said that Williamson did not have to have broken the law for his sacking to be justified. He stressed that what led to Williamson losing his job was that Theresa May concluded she no longer had confidence of him. He said this was not the same meeting the burden of proof required to show the Official Secrets Act had been broken.
- Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, strongly criticised May for sacking Williamson but not being willing to order a criminal investigation that might determine his guilt or innocence. Watson said:
In response to receiving the most brutal sacking I can think of [Williamson] has protested his innocence. Therefore this matter cannot be, as the prime minister says, closed.
The essential point here is the prime minister has sacked the secretary of state for defence because she believes there is compelling evidence that he has committed a crime. But despite that, she does not believe he should face a criminal investigation - where is the justice in that?
In what world is it acceptable that the prime minister should be the arbiter of whether a politician she believes is guilty of criminal conduct in office should face a criminal investigation?
- Some Tory MPs complained strongly about the way May has treated Williamson. During the UQ Sir Edward Leigh said:
In this country we believe in natural justice ... As a matter of natural justice, how is the former defence secretary now going to be given an opportunity to prove his innocence?
Sir Desmond Swayne said:
Outside this house [Williamson] is being called a liar. And inside this house a number of honourable members have implied as much. Natural justice demands that the evidence be produced so that his reputation can be salvaged or utterly destroyed, doesn’t it?
And Peter Bone said he thought Williamson has been the victim of a “kangaroo court reaching a decision in secret”. Leigh, Swayne and Bone are all rightwing Brexiters who would not be near the top of a list of May loyalists.
Updated
Bombardier is to sell its aerostructures business in Belfast, the company has announced. As the Press Association reports, a statement by the Canadian manufacturing giant confirmed rumours which had been circulating at the plant in Northern Ireland. A statement issued in Montreal said:
As the company moves to optimise its global manufacturing footprint, Bombardier will pursue the divestiture of the Belfast and Morocco aerostructures businesses. These are great businesses with tremendous capabilities.
The UQ is now over, but Tom Watson is raising a point of order. He says Lidington said it was for the police to investigation. But the Metropolitan police have said this morning they cannot investigate unless the information is shared with them.
Watson was referring to this.
Cressida Dick says there’s a “formal process” for dealing with alleged breaches of Official Secrets Act. Police need a referral and need to see material. They have have had neither in relation to latest alleged leak from National Security Council
— Danny Shaw (@DannyShawBBC) May 2, 2019
I will post a summary of what we’ve learnt from the Williamson exchanges shortly.
Bob Seely, a Conservative, says David Lidington told MPs last week that Huawei was a private company. Isn’t that a half-truth, he says. Isn’t it part of the Chinese state?
Lidington says Huawei is owned by its workers and so it is a private company. But he accepts that it is required to collaborate with the Chinese state.
He says the government wants to ensure diversity of supply.
Updated
Philip Hollobone, a Conservative, asks if a leak from the NSC is not a breach of the Official Secrets Act, what is?
Lidington says there are various tests that apply in deciding if the OSA has been broken. It depends on the category of information involved.
Updated
Back in the Commons Plaid Cymru’s Ben Lake asks if the government would refer this to the police if it thought the law had been broken.
Lidington says the cabinet secretary considered this carefully, and chose not to refer it to the police.
Turning away from the UQ for a moment, this is from the BBC’s Danny Shaw.
BREAKING Cressida Dick says Met will “look at any complaint” that’s made re leaks but they have had no referral from Cabinet Office. If a referral was made, she says Met would assess and scope it before carrying out an investigation
— Danny Shaw (@DannyShawBBC) May 2, 2019
Peter Bone, a Tory Brexiter, says Williamson has said on the lives of his children he did not leak this information. This seems to be a kangaroo court, he says.
He says Andrew Mitchell was forced to resign as chief whip after a row with a police officer, but what he said was subsequently found to be true.
(That is a very partial account of the Mitchell affair, which did result in Mitchell losing a libel case.)
Lidington repeats the point about May deciding she no longer had confidence in Williamson.
Updated
Greg Hands, a Conservative, says the ministerial code does not even mention the NSC.
Lidington says the NSC is a cabinet committee, so it is covered by what the code says about cabinet.
Lidington says, if the cabinet secretary had found prima facie evidence that the law had been broken, he would have come to a different judgment about referring this to the police.
He says there is a difference between the test for the law being broken, and falling below the required standard for ministerial confidentiality.
Updated
Steve Baker, a Conservative Brexiter, says the principles of good government must be upheld. But does this mean we won’t see breaches of collective responsibility that undermine the UK’s Brexit negotiating positions?
Baker is referring to cabinet pro-Europeans telling journalists about their opposition to a no-deal Brexit.
Lidington says ministers should accept collective cabinet responsibility.
Updated
Sir Desmond Swayne, a Conservative, says outside this house Williamson is being called a liar. And some MPs are implying as much. He says natural justice requires that Williamson be allowed to defend his reputation, or see it destroyed.
Lidington says he has chosen his language with care. May sacked Williamson because she no longer had confidence in him, he says.
Labour’s Chris Bryant says MPs will feel sorry for Williamson. You cannot prove yourself innocent in a kangaroo court.
And he says Lidington was wrong to say this was not a matter for the attorney general. The attorney general would have to agree any prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.
Lidington says it is right to say that the attorney general would have to approve a prosecution under the OSA. But he cannot trigger an inquiry.
And he repeats his point about the fact of the leak being more important than the substance of what it involved.
Sir Edward Leigh, a Conservative, says in this country people believe in natural justice. How can Williamson prove his innocence?
Lidington says Williamson has not been accused of an offence. But he has lost the confidence of the PM.
Anna Soubry, the Change UK MP, says this episode represents “the complete disintegration of this government”. It marks someone abandoning all honour for personal advantage. She says, no ifs, not buts, this matter has to go to the police. Will the government fully cooperate with that police investigation?
Lidington says, if the police consider that is necessary, the government will give full cooperation.
Updated
Oliver Letwin, the Conservative former Cabinet Office minister, says on this occasion there does not seem to have been a leak of classified information.
Lidington says he cannot be sure. NSC papers are classified. But in this case it was less the substance of the leak than the fact that the leak took place. Leaks of this kind undermine trust, he says. And the UK’s allies rely on that trust too.
- Lidington says the fact there was a leak from the NSC was more important than the substance of the leak.
Labour’s Kevan Jones asks if the attorney general has been asked if the Official Secrets Act was broken.
Lidington says this was not a matter for the attorney general. It was for the PM to decide whether the ministerial code was broken.
Lidington says it is not for government to say whether Official Secrets Act was broken
The SNP’s Stewart McDonald says this is a disgraceful episode. He praises the PM for acting quickly, but he says it is not for her to say that this matter is closed.
In her letter the PM said Williamson did not cooperate with the leak inquiry as satisfactorily as others did. What does this mean?
Does Williamson have a future in the Conservative party? Will he be able to be a candidate again? And will he have his CBE removed?
And has the Official Secrets Act been broken?
Lidington says it is not for him to say if the OSA has been broken. That would be a matter for prosecuting authorities and for the courts.
- Lidington says it is not for the government to say whether or not the Official Secrets Act was broken.
On the investigation, he says he will not go beyond what was in May’s letter.
MPs will know that May had a close working relationship with Williamson. (He helped organise her leadership campaign.) So she would not have done what she did without compelling evidence, he says.
On Williamson’s honour, Lidington says this is a matter for an independent committee.
He concludes by saying that Williamson has lost a job he loved.
Updated
Lidington is responding to Watson.
He says Watson has raised various different issues.
On Huawei, he says once the government has made a decision about 5G, it will announce it to the Commons.
Its priorities will be security of the network, resilience and diversity of supply, he says.
On the inquiry, he says the ministerial code says ministers only remain in office as long as they retain the confidence of the PM. She is the ultimate judge of that, he says.
Watson says Huawai leak affair cannot be considered closed
Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, says the PM has accused Williamson of being responsible for the leak. But Williamson has denied it. Only one of them can be right.
He says this was the “most brutal sacking” he can recall.
He says May has sacked Williamson because of “compelling evidence” he committed a crime. But she does not want a criminal investigation. That cannot be right, he says.
He says this matter cannot be considered closed.
- Watson says Huawai leak affair cannot be considered closed.
He asks if there were any leaks from the leak inquiry.
And he asks whether the Huawei decision was sound. The UK’s five eyes intelligence partners (the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) do not consider it is right for the UK to allow Huawei a role in building 5G infrastructure. Speaking out about this is unprecedented, he says.
He asks if Lidington is confident the Huawei decision keeps the UK safe and protects our relationship with our allies.
Urgent question on Gavin Williamson
David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister and Theresa May’s de facto deputy, is responding to the UQ about Gavin Williamson.
He says the National Security Council was set up in 2010, partly as a result of lessons learnt from the Iraq war.
It takes decisions crucial to national security, he says.
He says it is inconceivable now that the country could go to war without the NSC having a very full discussion about the decision, with access to full papers and legal advice.
It is vital that its proceedings are confidential, he says.
He says May set out her conclusions yesterday.
Any leak from the NSC is particularly serious, he says.
He says the PM now considers this matter closed and the cabinet secretary does not consider it necessary to refer this to the police. But if the police want to investigate, the government will cooperate.
He says he will not comment on personnel, and will not go into details.
How lobby journalists get their stories
Like people who make sausages, journalists who create news would sometimes rather the public did not know exactly what was involved in the production process. Sometimes it is not quite as edifying as people assume.
So it is worth flagging up an exchange on the Today programme earlier between Nick Robinson, the Today presenter and the former BBC political editor, and Tom Newton Dunn, the Sun’s political editor, in which they discussed how the Telegraph’s Steven Swinford might have got his story about the National Security Council’s Huawei story.
Robinson suggested that, to get a story like this, a journalist would not have to be told directly and outright by a minister what happened. They might instead by able to infer it from the minister not disagreeing with a proposition put to him, or her. Newton Dunn agreed. And he went on:
I’m sure that’s how it would have happened, whoever the leaker was, if it was Gavin Williamson, who we’ve all suspected it was in Westminster. We’ve done this for a while. That’s exactly how the conversations go. You don’t ring up a minister and say, ‘Will you leak this to me?’ You say to him, “If I were to write, and I think that this happened, would I look particularly silly?” And then the minister says to you, “I don’t think you look silly, Tom, at the best of times”. And that’s the code we talk in. Or sometimes they say, “You do look particularly silly much of the time”. That’s the code. And that’s how it would have happened.
Gavin Williamson has admitted talking to Swinford for 11 minutes after the NSC meeting. But he denies telling Swinford what happened.
It is possible that Williamson could both be the source of Swinford’s information, and that Williamson genuinely believes he did not actively give away any secrets because he never said anything specific.
Updated
The curtains were drawn and two cars were on the drive at Gavin Williamson’s constituency address in a leafy area of south Staffordshire this morning, the Press Association reports. But there was no answer from anybody on the doorstep at the detached property.
Hunt says the police, not government, should decide whether Williamson should be investigated
Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, has said that it is not up to the government to decide whether there is a criminal investigation into Gavin Williamson. Speaking at a World Press Freedom Day forum at the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Hunt said:
Let me say that, when it comes to issues like whether there should be a police investigation or not, there’s a very, very important principle of our system that those decisions are not made by politicians, they are made independently by police. And that has to be the correct way forward in this situation.
But Lord Dannatt, the former head of the army, questioned Gus O’Donnell’s claim that the leak was not a breach of the Official Secrets Act. (See 9.21am.) Dannatt said:
Gus O’Donnell has just said on this programme that he does not regard [this] as a breach of the Official Secrets Act. I think that’s probably a moot point, given that the material in question that was being discussed came from the National Security Council.
When it was put to Dannatt that Gavin Williamson had to deny being the source of the leak because otherwise he might face jail, Dannatt agreed. He said:
I think that’s probably why he is protesting it, because I think he has to protest his innocence over this, otherwise he is laying himself open to potential criminal prosecution.
Dannatt said that he spoke to Williamson last night, and Williamson was “very much protesting his innocence”.
Dannatt also described this a “a personal tragedy” and paid tribute to Williamson’s record as defence secretary.
It’s a very difficult brief, people take quite some time to learn it, and he has got to grips with it pretty well over the last 18 months.
He got £1.8bn extra in the budget last year and was continuing to argue the case for more resources in the spending review and he was fighting his corner.
Yes, he made some mistakes, he made some gaffes, and said some things that he probably regretted, but on the whole he was doing a good job.
Updated
This is what Gus O’Donnell, the former cabinet secretary, told the Today programme about Gavin Williamson’s offence being a breach of the ministerial code, not necessarily a breach of the Official Secrets Act. (See 9.04am.)
The cabinet secretary is saying, ‘Look, this is a matter for the violation of the ministerial code. It is not a breach of the Official Secrets Act, putting people’s lives at risk.’ That is why it is a matter for the prime minister to decide does she want this person in her political team when faced with this evidence? And she’s basically decided that he is not the Lionel Messi of the cabinet and she can do without him.
“Not the Lionel Messi of the cabinet” is a polite way of saying was a dud as defence secretary. That is certainly a common view at Westminster – my colleague Matthew Weaver has a good round-up of some of Williamson’s mishaps in the role here – although it is worth pointing out that in his previous job, as chief whip, Williamson was seen as highly effective.
Updated
There will be a second urgent question in the Commons after the Gavin Williamson one.
There is a second UQ to @AlanBrownSNP to ask Chris Grayling Alan Brown MP to ask if he will make a statement on the No Deal Brexit Preparations for Cross Channel Ferry and Freight services.
— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) May 2, 2019
Last night, after announcing that Gavin Williamson was being sacked as defence secretary for the Huawei leak from the National Security Council, Downing Street said it considered the matter “closed”. You can read all the details in our overnight splash.
But the opposition parties have got other ideas; they are pushing for a criminal inquiry.
Tom Watson, the Labour deputy leader, was on the Today programme this morning making this argument. He said:
This is about the law applying equally and to everyone.
We have had high-profile civil servants go to jail for breaching the Official Secrets Act.
The logic of the prime minister’s letter is she says she has compelling evidence that suggests he has done the same.
He is denying it and he has the right to clear his name - the way to do that is a criminal inquiry if confidential information has leaked.
The Liberal Democrats are making the same argument. This is what Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, said last night:
This story cannot begin and end with dismissal from office.
What is at stake is the capacity of our security services to give advice at the highest level.
This must now be referred to the Metropolitan police for a thorough criminal investigation into breaches of the Official Secrets Act.
There are different views on whether or not Williamson, assuming he was responsible for the leak, might have broken the Official Secrets Act. On the Today programme this morning Gus O’Donnell, the former cabinet secretary, said Williamson’s offence was breaking the ministerial code, not breaking secrecy laws. But Lord Dannatt, a former head of the army, told the same programme a few minutes later that he did not necessarily accept this.
We’ll here more on this in the Commons at 10.30am, because it has just been announced that Labour has been granted an urgent question on this.
🚨UQ granted at 1030 to @tom_watson to ask @theresa_may if she will make a statement on the findings of the inquiry into the National Security Committee leak.
— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) May 2, 2019
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
10am: Theresa May holds a meeting with her Icelandic counterpart, Katrín Jakobsdóttir.
10.30am: Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, asks an urgent question in the Commons about the sacking of Gavin Williamson.
After 11am: Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, makes a statement about next week’s Commons business.
Of course, there are also local elections today in England and Northern Ireland. If you are commenting on them in the comments, please do not say anything about how you, or anyone else, cast their vote. Under electoral law it is an offence to publish “any statement relating to the way in which voters have voted at the election where that statement is (or might reasonably be taken to be) based on information given by voters after they have voted”.
But we are interested in hearing about the elections in your area. You could just say you expect X to do very well ...
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 BTL but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply ATL, although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.
Updated
