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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

May agrees to set departure date after Brexit bill vote as Johnson announces leadership bid – as it happened

Theresa May arrives for a meeting with the Conservative party’s backbench 1922 Committee.
Theresa May arrives for a meeting with the Conservative party’s backbench 1922 Committee. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Afternoon summary

  • The government has been accused of a “pernicious form of racism” by a Muslim MP for rejecting a widely accepted definition of Islamophobia. As the Press Association reports, Labour’s Naz Shah attacked the Conservatives as a “party in denial” of its own problem with Islamophobia, who are “not serious about the safety and security of British Muslims”. She revealed she fears for her own safety in an emotional speech to the Commons during a backbench debate on the issue. She said:

If it is down to women to define the experience of feminism, the experiences of people of colour to define racism, the experience of Jews to define antisemitism, the experience of the LGBTQ+ communities to define homophobia, I ask the minister how dare he tell the British Muslims that our experiences cannot define Islamophobia. If that isn’t a pernicious form of racism then what is it?

She called on the government to “rethink this decision” after it rejected the definition of Islamophobia drafted by the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on British Muslims, which has been accepted by a number of other political parties, on the grounds that “further careful consideration” over the wording was needed.

That’s all from me for today.

I’ll be back with a Politics Live blog tomorrow.

Thanks for the comments.

Anti-Brexit campaigners have put up a series of billboards taking aim at Nigel Farage and the Brexit party by highlighting past statements he and his candidates have made.
As the Press Association report, photos show the billboards in place at locations including Taunton in Somerset, Coventry, and Neath in South Wales, with slogans such as “attack the NHS” and “less maternity pay” next to comments attributed to Brexit party members. The billboard in Coventry cites a quote Farage gave during a speech where he said: “We need to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare.” The group Led by Donkeys wrote on Twitter:

Brexit party leader Nigel Farage hasn’t written a manifesto so we’ve done it for him, based on statements by him and his candidates. Billboards going up across the country this week.

Handout photo issued by Led By Donkeys of a billboard in Taunton, Somerset, showing one of Brexit party leader Nigel Farage’s previous policy pronouncements.
Handout photo issued by Led By Donkeys of a billboard in Taunton, Somerset, showing one of Brexit party leader Nigel Farage’s previous policy pronouncements. Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Led By Donkeys/PA

ERG opposition to May's Brexit agreement increasing, says Tory MP Mark Francois

When MPs last voted on the prime minister’s Brexit agreement, the European Research Group, which represents Tories pushing for a harder Brexit, was split, with some of its members voting for and some against. But Mark Francois, its vice chair, has said this afternoon that “within the ERG, opposition to the withdrawal agreement bill is increasing.” He said it was “incredibly unlikely” the bill would pass its second reading.

This is from Nikki da Costa, the former director of legislative affairs at Number 10 under Theresa May.

The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg says the next big row in Conservative politics will be over the timetable for the leadership contest.

Timetables matter a lot in party leadership contests. It is widely assumed in Tory circles that a long contest helped enable David Cameron to win in 2005 - and equally, in Labour circles, that a long contest in 2015 helped enable Andy Burnham to lose.

And, for the case against Boris Johnson, this blog by Alex Massie for the Spectator’s Coffee House is good. Here’s an extract.

But Prime Minister Johnson would have, I suspect, explosive consequences. He might be a ‘One Nation’ Tory (of sorts) but there’s a hefty chance he’d find himself leading a much smaller nation. As matters stand, Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP have no persuasive or easy route to a second independence referendum, nor any compelling answers to the problems Brexit will cause for the practical aspects of independence. Even so, the most recent Times/YouGov poll put support for independence at 49 per cent.

You might think escaping Boris Johnson a small or thin or feeble reason for breaking up the United Kingdom and I might agree with you but the point is many others would not. Nicola Sturgeon couldn’t ask for a better recruiting officer than Johnson. There’s a reason Ruth Davidson hates him, you know, and it goes beyond Johnson’s abundant sense of entitlement and evident sense work is for other, lesser, people.

With Boris Johnson confirming that he will stand for the Conservative leadership, here are two good assessments of his chances of winning.

“Look,” says one cabinet member who is also a likely leadership candidate. “There are plenty of MPs who will try to keep him out of the final two. It could be a very nasty contest. But lots of them also think that his name recognition and his shameless populism is exactly the edge they need to save their seats.”

Concerning the contest to succeed May, this minister adds: “We’ll probably all be talking about our departmental records, and how qualified we are to follow Theresa. Boris will be talking about voters’ feelings. And feelings win these days.”

This final observation – almost a throwaway remark – gets us to the nub. In the weeks and months ahead, learned commentators and pollsters will comb through Johnson’s past failures and present contradictions in forensic detail, and conclude – like those of us who predicted that remain and Hillary Clinton would prevail in 2016 – that, logically, he cannot win.

They will not only be wrong. They will be using the wrong tools of analysis. If Trump’s victory has a single, unavoidable lesson, it is that, to an increasing extent, politics is best understood as a branch of the entertainment industry, in which the populist tormentor of elites is king, and sentiment is more important than rationality.

Those close to Boris admit that he was naïve about how easily it would all fall into place — and deeply rattled by the ferocity of the backlash to Brexit’s victory. He had gone from being the capital’s Olympic mascot to having hundreds of people outside his home shouting abuse. Worse, many of his own friends and family were furious about the referendum result, and not shy about letting him know. Given Boris’s near-pathological desire to be liked, this shook him badly.

But those who spend the most time with him say that he’s now more determined. That he is reconciled to being a hate figure for many remainers, less anxious to be liked — and more prepared to take on officialdom. ‘Being outside the system has made him more gung-ho,’ says someone who knows him well. He has also come to terms with his new status as a pariah in bien pensant society. In private, he jokes about how he now receives ‘ABC1 abuse’.

Updated

An anti-Brexit protester stands next to Brexit party campaign placards outside of the Houses of Parliament
An anti-Brexit protester stands next to Brexit party campaign placards outside of the Houses of Parliament Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Yesterday YouGov published some polling suggesting that just 13% of people think Labour’s Brexit policy is very or fairly clear, making it the party with the most opaque stance on Brexit. The Conservatives are not much better. On this measure, the Brexit party, followed by Ukip, come top.

Of course, this measure is not the same as approval for a party’s stance.

On a visit to Salford today, asked about these findings, Jeremy Corbyn denied that Labour’s message was “confused” in the run-up to the European elections. He said:

I’m not judging people about how they voted in 2016, what I’m saying is hold the government to account, make sure we have got a proper relationship with Europe in the future to protect manufacturing industry and the service industry jobs all across the North West and don’t allow the siren voices of the far right to divide our communities.

Jeremy Corbyn and Rebecca Long Bailey, the shadow business secretary.
Jeremy Corbyn and Rebecca Long Bailey, the shadow business secretary. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/Getty Images

Javid criticises tech giants for not paying enough tax

Sajid Javid has been quick out of the blocks with some unofficial leadership campaigning, making a speech to a thinktank extolling the merits of small business, and bemoaning the lack of government help they receive.

The home secretary, seen as a definite contender when Theresa May eventually announces her departure, was speaking at an event by the Centre for Policy Studies, the free enterprise organisation co-founded by Margaret Thatcher.

Introducing a new report calling for a simplified tax regime for small firms, Javid reminisced about the women’s clothing store in Bristol run by his father, above which the family lived:

I remember with my dad, his business had its ups and downs. I could see how the family mood would change sometimes when a bill arrived and you wonder: are you going to have the business over the next few week, the next few months, to actually meet that bill. Could you be in trouble?

Javid was critical at the lack of what he called a “level playing field” over tax for small and big businesses, and was particularly scathing about tech giants:

Whilst the small businesses are paying their fair share of tax they see these tech businesses paying what I would say is a piddling share of tax, if anything at all. That is not fair, it’s not right, and it’s not acceptable.

None of this message could be described as surprising, but it was a reminder of the credibility Javid brings as someone who can genuinely understand the difficulties of small businesses and struggling families. The speech also reminded the audience of another aspect to Javid – that he is a somewhat wooden speaker. Either way, he is definitely among the front few to replace May.

Sajid Javid
Sajid Javid Photograph: Mark Thomas/REX/Shutterstock

Government 'stuck in a kind of limbo' over Brexit, says international development secretary Rory Stewart

Rory Stewart, the new international development secretary, has admitted that the government is “stuck in a kind of limbo” over Brexit. He was visiting the Department for International Development office in East Kilbride and was asked if he thought the prime minister’s Brexit agreement would pass the Commons next month. He replied:

I think literally anybody who pretends they can prophesy what is going to happen with Brexit is fooling you.

The reality is that it seems to be checkmate in every direction.

My instinct is we’ve just got to get this through by hook or by crook, there’s got to be some way of driving this thing through because this is not good for business, it’s not good for citizens.

We’re stuck in a kind of limbo, people voted to leave, some people disagree with that, I voted to remain but in the end the majority voted to leave and we have to get on and deliver that.

I’m arguing about getting this deal done so that we can move on to other things, to the climate, to the environment, to international development, to sorting out housing in the United Kingdom.

Andrew Bridgen, the Tory Brexiter, has told the Press Association he expects the leadership contest to conclude well before the end of the summer recess. He said:

We will be able to have the Conservative party leadership concluded well before the end of the summer recess and by September, when we come back, we will have a new prime minister and it needs to be a Brexiteer who believes in Brexit and is willing to get us out on October 31 without a deal, if necessary.

Here is more on Theresa May’s meeting with the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee.

From the BBC’s Norman Smith

From the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn

May 'so incompetent she can't even resign properly', claim SNP

Here is Ian Blackford, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, on the outcome of Theresa May’s meeting with the 1922 Committee. He said:

The Tories have given up governing the country, they’ve given up campaigning in the European elections and they’ve given up even pretending to support their leader. The only thing we’ve learned from today’s latest fudge from the 1922 Committee is that Theresa May is so incompetent that she can’t even resign properly.

The Change UK MP Joan Ryan came up with a rather bizarre way to explain to supporters how they could solve the problems facing the nation at a campaign event in Bath today. There is a clip here.

Maybe if Theresa May tries the same line in the House of Commons, she can persuade MPs to back her Brexit deal ...

Here’s a clip from the Graham Brady interview.

From my colleague Rowena Mason

This is from my colleague Heather Stewart.

Brady says May’s meeting with the 1922 Committee was 'very frank'

Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, is speaking now.

He starts by summarising his statement. (See 3pm.)

Asked if May will have to stand down even if she cannot pass Brexit, Brady says he and Theresa May have agreed to meet to discuss the timetable for a leadership contest, regardless of whether or not the EU withdrawal agreement bill is passed at second reading.

We have agreed to meet to decide the timetable for the election of a new leader of the Conservative party as soon as the second reading has occurred and that will take place regardless of what the vote is on the second reading - whether it passes or whether it fails.

  • Brady confirms that May will be expected to announce her resignation if she loses the vote on the Brexit withdrawal agreement bill in early June.

He says the discussion today was “very frank”. He says he tried to ensure all views were expressed.

It was a very frank discussion, I tried to make sure that all the views represented on the executive were expressed and we had a very frank exchange with the prime minister.

  • Brady says May’s meeting with the 1922 Committee was “very frank”.

“Very frank” is normally code for a blazing row. It sounds as if, as reported in advance, some members of the executive did tell May that she should go immediately.

Updated

Full text of 1922 Committee statement after its meeting with May

Here is the full text of the statement from Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee. He said:

The prime minister is determined to secure our departure from the European Union and is devoting her efforts to securing the 2nd reading of the withdrawal agreement bill in the week commencing 3rd June 2019 and the passage of that bill and the consequent departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union by the summer.

We have agreed that she and I will meet following the 2nd reading of the bill to agree a timetable for the election of a new leader of the Conservative and Unionist party.

Sir Graham Brady
Sir Graham Brady Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

Updated

May agrees to set timetable for her departure after vote on Brexit bill in early June

Here is the statement from the 1922 Committee.

And here is the key point.

  • Theresa May has been granted a temporary reprieve after the 1922 Committee agreed to let her wait until after the vote on the EU withdrawal agreement bill in early June before she has to set a date for her departure. But she has agreed to set a date then - regardless of whether or not MPs approve her deal in the second reading vote on the EU withdrawal agreement bill. Until recently she was not willing to discuss resigning in the event of her Brexit plan not being passed.

Updated

Plaid Cymru claim they are leading pro-remain party in Wales

The Brexit party is heading for an overwhelming victory in Wales in the EU elections and both Labour and the Tories are in free-fall, a YouGov poll suggests.

Conducted for the nationalists, Plaid Cymru, the poll has the Brexit party winning a third of the votes in Wales, up 23% on last month. Labour is way behind on 18%, the Tories on a mere 7%.

Plaid is very pleased to be at 16%, which it says shows it has a chance of beating Labour in a nationwide election for the first time ever. It is appealing for pro-remain voters to lend them their support to secure a majority for the remain camp.

Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price said:

This poll makes absolutely clear that Plaid Cymru is the only remain party that can win in Wales. We are the party on the up and we are the only viable option for remain supporters.

Parties like the Liberal Democrats and Greens simply cannot win in Wales. I am appealing to their voters to back Plaid Cymru in the European election because we are the only realistic option for those seeking to beat Brexit.

I am also appealing to disillusioned and disenfranchised Labour supporters, who have had enough of their party leadership’s attempts to facilitate a Tory Brexit, to lend their vote to us in order to secure a majority for remain.

If Liberal Democrat, Green, and Change UK supporters back Plaid Cymru, remain would win two seats, and push the Brexit party to second place.

The Lib Dems, for one, see it differently. They reckon the poll means the Brexit party, Welsh Labour and Plaid will win one of the four Welsh seats each. They believe the Brexit party might win a second seat – or the Lib Dems could take it. So it is calling for the Greens, Change UK and remain Labour voters to support the Lib Dems.

Here are the full results, with the change since April Wales barometer poll in brackets

Brexit party – 33% (+23%)

Labour – 18% (-12%)

Plaid Cymru – 16% (+1%)

Lib Dems – 10% (+4%)

Greens – 8% (+3%)

Conservatives – 7% (-9%)

Change UK – 4% (-4%)

Ukip – 3% (-8%)

The Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price
The Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price Photograph: Mark Thomas/REX/Shutterstock

This from Bloomberg’s Kitty Donaldson.

David Cameron’s memoir will be out in September, at the start of the party conference season, his publishers have announced.

And it is going to be called “For The Record” – which does not tell you a lot, but does sound a bit defensive, understandably. Attention will almost certainly focus on how he justifies his decision to hold the Brexit referendum.

(On the basis of what he has said about it already, I would expect his line to be that, if the British public were really daft enough to want to leave the EU, it was not his job to stop them. In another era a member of the patrician ruling class like Cameron would have said that that was exactly what the job entailed.)

Updated

From the Telegraph’s Jack Maidment

This is from the Press Association.

A meeting of the executive of the 1922 Committee has broken up and a written statement will be issued shortly, the Press Association understands.

Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee, is about to tell us what happened at today’s meeting, the BBC says.

Lunchtime summary

  • Theresa May has left a lengthy private meeting with the executive of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee, where members were going to tell to announce a timetable for her resignation. (See 9.15am.) The meeting took place in the House of Commons, and May was driven away about half an hour ago. Often, within half an hour of a cabinet meeting ending, accounts of what was said have already been leaked to journalists. But no member of the 1922 executive has spoken to the media in public yet, there don’t seem to be any leaks, and Number 10 has not been briefing either, and so we are still in the dark about what happened.
  • Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary, has confirmed he will stand for the Conservative party leadership. This will come as a surprise to no one, but it is good to have it on the record. This is from the BBC’s Huw Edwards.
  • Angry Conservatives MPs have hit out at the government following reports that plans to protect armed forces veterans from prosecution will not apply to Northern Ireland. As the Press Association reports, the government faced accusations of making a “rancid backstairs deal” with Sinn Fein, as MPs lined up to call for better protection for ex-servicemen and women from “vexatious attacks” and being pursued through the courts. Following an announcement from the defence secretary, Penny Mordaunt, that British veterans would have greater protection against prosecution for actions on the battlefield, there were calls to extend the protection to service personnel who served in Northern Ireland. Speaking in the House of Commons, Tory MP Mark Francois dubbed proposals to re-investigate every fatality during the Troubles from the late 1960s onwards as “IHAT mark two”, after the controversial Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) investigation, which was shut down over fraudulent claims of criminality by soldiers. During an urgent question he said:

After the appalling, tragic events in Londonderry, we all want to see the Northern Ireland executive re-established but that cannot be at the price of some rancid backstairs deal between the Northern Ireland Office and Sinn Fein IRA to sell Corporal Johnny Atkins down the river at the price of establishing the executive.

May has turned UK into 'laughing stock', says Farage

Nigel Farage has made a campaign visit to an Essex nightclub favoured by the cast of Towie and told a crowded room: “The Only Way Is Brexit.” As the Press Association reports, the Brexit party leader was welcomed to Sugar Hut in Brentwood by club owner Mick Norcross ahead of next week’s European elections. Boxer Dereck Chisora was among the crowd, which also included many international journalists.

Farage said:

I thought if we won the Brexit battle our politicians would simply have to deliver it.

I’ve now learnt that this battle is about far more than Brexit, this battle actually is about democracy.

It’s about whether we are a democratic nation, it’s about whether we have a bond of trust between us and those that govern us, it’s about how the rest of the world looks at us.

We used to be an admired country. This prime minister and our parliament have turned us into a laughing stock.

Nigel Farage at the Sugar Hut in Brentwood, Essex.
Nigel Farage at the Sugar Hut in Brentwood, Essex. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

From the Telegraph’s Jack Maidment

This is from the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves.

And since we’re on the subject of polling, Peter Kellner, the former YouGov president, has written a good piece for the Guardian about the relationship between Brexit and support for political parties. YouGov has a very large database which means that it can look at how the same individuals voted in the 2016 referendum and in the 2017 general, and how those same people say they would vote now. He says this proves that Labour’s recent fall in support has been caused entirely by defections from pro-Europeans.

Here is an excerpt.

Let’s start with all those who voted Labour in 2017. The shift is clear. Defections to remain parties – the Liberal Democrats in particular – rose sharply, while those to leave parties did not. In late April, defections divided two to one in favour of remain parties; by last week, that had risen to three to one. More of those who voted Labour two years ago now plan to switch to one of the remain parties than plan to stay loyal to Labour.

And here is the full article.

YouGov has released some polling this morning showing that Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, has got a significantly higher favourability rating than either Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn, who are both doing very appallingly. Although it would probably be more accurate to say that he is less unpopular, because all their ratings are negative. At the end of 2016 Farage was behind them both.

Favourability ratings
Favourability ratings Photograph: YouGov

As Matthew Smith explains in the YouGov write-up, when people are asked about parties, and not leaders, the Conservatives and Labour are both doing very badly - although on this measure Labour is ahead of the Tories.

The Conservative and Labour parties’ own scores mirror those of their leaders, with the Tories receiving a new all-time low of -46 (from -39) and Labour having moved up fractionally from March’s all-time low of -37 to -35 now.

There is good news for Change UK in the poll; their interim leader, Heidi Allen, is the least unpopular of all the party leaders. But, as Smith points out, that is that is not a particularly meaningful result because only around a third of people know enough about her to have a view.

There is also good news for the Greens in the poll results (pdf). They are the party with the most favourable ratings, and the only party to score a net positive (+9). The most unpopular party is Ukip, which on -55 is doing even worse than the Tories.

Change UK’s Heidi Allen - the UK’s most popular party leader, at least according to one YouGov measure.
Change UK’s Heidi Allen - the UK’s most popular party leader, at least according to one YouGov measure. Photograph: Dimitris Legakis/Athena Pictures

Updated

These are from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.

This is from the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves.

Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, speaking to activists at a campaign event in South Queensferry, Edinburgh, with the Forth bridge in the background.
Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, speaking to activists at a campaign event in South Queensferry, Edinburgh, with the Forth bridge in the background. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

And while we’re on the subject of the Change UK battlebus, it’s in Bath this morning, with the Change UK candidate Rachel Johnson, who may have been having a go at her brother. This is from LBC’s Theo Usherwood.

The Green MP Caroline Lucas unveiled the party’s campaign bus this morning. This is what it looks like.

Caroline Lucas (left) poses in front of their electric-powered Stop Brexit campaign bus at an event in Brighton
Caroline Lucas (left) poses in front of their electric-powered Stop Brexit campaign bus at an event in Brighton Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

These European elections have not been great for battlebuses, but on the basis of this picture, I guess the Greens are winning the prize for best effort.

The Brexit party has a battlebus that at least has a clear message of sorts.

The Brexit party campaign bus.
The Brexit party campaign bus. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

And the worst bus? I’m afraid it’s got to be Change UK’s, which just looks like a mobile zebra crossing.

May will destroy Tory party unless she resigns now, says former cabinet minister

Nick Timothy’s Telegraph column (see 11.34am) is relatively mild compared to another in the paper today (paywall), by the Tory Brexiter and former cabinet minister Owen Paterson. He says Theresa May will destroy the Conservative party unless she resigns “now”. He says:

This deal will still not get through parliament, and cabinet must remind Mrs May of that. Unless she abandons it, accepts defeat and resigns now, her enduring legacy will instead be to have destroyed the Conservative party and, in all likelihood, to have delivered the rise of a Corbyn-led government bent on crashing the economy and, in cahoots with the SNP, breaking up the United Kingdom itself.

Paterson also points out that that there is nothing inevitable about a party like the Conservative party surviving. He explains:

Assuming that the old order will carry on, come what may, is a fatal mistake. One need only look at the long litany of electoral disasters across the world to see that.

Christian Democracy in Italy, which supplied 26 of the 28 Italian prime ministers between 1946 and 1992, holding office for 40 of those 45 years, has disappeared. In 1988, the Progressive Conservatives held 169 of the 295 seats in the Canadian House of Commons and formed a majority government. But mishandling the global recession and unpopular tax policies saw it lose all but two of those seats at the next election in 1993. Ten years later, the party was dissolved entirely.

In 2017, the French Socialists - the party of Mitterrand and Hollande - lost 249 national assembly seats. They now represent just 30. The UK is not immune to electoral wipe-outs. The Shell Crisis of 1915 - in which the Liberal government failed to prepare sufficient stocks of artillery shells - saw Asquith’s government fall and his party lose 236 seats, including his own and those of all his former cabinet ministers, in the next general election. There has not been a purely Liberal government since.

Owen Paterson.
Owen Paterson. Photograph: George Cracknell Wright/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

Leadsom says EU withdrawal agreement bill will be published 'as soon as possible'

Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, has just told MPs that the government will publish the EU withdrawal agreement bill “as soon as possible” so that MPs can read it before the second reading. She said the second reading would be in the week beginning Monday 3 June, but she did not say on which day.

Nick Timothy was Theresa May’s co-chief of staff until the 2017 general election. A fervent Brexiter, he wrote her most important speeches and he is credited, or blamed, for encouraging her to adopt a hard Brexit stance in the first 11 months of her premiership. Now he writes a column for the Daily Telegraph and in today’s (paywall) he uses it to say it is “beyond time” for her to go. He says:

It’s now beyond time for the prime minister to accept that the game is up. Her premiership has failed, and her authority is shot. She has lost control of her ministers, who are clamouring to replace her. She has lost her MPs, who feel betrayed and misled. In June, the Conservative voluntary party will declare no confidence in her as its leader.

In the local elections earlier this month, she lost almost 1,300 councillors. In the farcical European elections next week, she will win as few as one in 10 votes. In the Peterborough by-election – held to replace a jailed Labour MP – she will surely lose.

The reason for this Conservative collapse is not complicated. The prime minister promised repeatedly that Brexit would mean Brexit. She said “no deal is better than a bad deal.” And yet, three years after the referendum, she has failed to get Britain out of the European Union.

Timothy argues that the rot set in after he stopped working for her and that the hard version of Brexit set out in the Lancaster House speech (which he co-wrote) was obtainable.

In cabinet, [May] complains that Brexit has been reduced to binary choices. But leaving the EU – freeing ourselves of its laws and institutions – is a binary choice, and a choice already made by the British people. This is something she once accepted. When ministers and officials proposed what she dismissed as “clinging to bits of the EU we liked”, she used to relish reprimanding them. We would negotiate a close economic and security relationship, she explained, but we would be entirely outside EU laws and institutions. In other words, the choice was binary.

May’s defenders would argue that the Lancaster House Brexit was unrealistic and that May softened her approach because she concluded that following the Timothy blueprint would cause grievous damage to British manufacturing.

According to the Sun, Conservative MPs loyal to Theresa May (they do exist, apparently) are threatening to trigger a vote of no confidence in the executive of the 1922 Committee if the committee tries to change the rules to allow an immediate no confidence vote in May. In their story Tom Newton Dunn and Steve Hawkes report:

In an extraordinary new turn in the long running saga, May loyalists have also vowed to then force a vote of confidence in the 17-strong executive itself.

One senior Tory MP who wants Mrs May to stay on told The Sun Wednesday night: “If the executive goes ahead with a rule change now, it will be the height of irresponsibility at this time of national crisis as well as destabilise the leadership forever more.

“So we will call a confidence vote in them, which all colleagues are within their full rights to do.”

The Sun also quotes an unnamed Brexiter on the 1922 executive saying it probably will not decide to change the rules to allow an early no confidence vote in May because he decision to schedule the Brexit vote for early June will be enough to satisfy the executive.

Starmer quashes speculation Labour could abstain on Brexit bill, saying it will vote against if no cross-party deal agreed

Yesterday, in his regular post-PMQs briefing for lobby journalists, Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman repeatedly refused to rule out the party abstaining on the second reading of the EU withdrawal agreement bill, prompting speculation that this could be a means by which Theresa May could win the vote - with the decisive division postponed until third reading, when Labour might take a yes/no view on the bill as amended.

But two very senior members of the shadow cabinet have now insisted that, if the bill does not include Labour’s Brexit demands, the party will vote against it at second reading in the first week of June. On ITV’s Peston last night Emily Thornberry said Labour was “going to oppose [the bill]” if it was not rewritten to include the party’s demands. And at Brexit questions in the Commons this morning Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, said the same. He told MPs:

If the prime minister’s deal is put [to a vote] for the a fourth time, if it’s allowed, it will fail, just as it’s failed three times already. But I want to make it clear that Labour opposes the idea of passing the withdrawal agreement bill without an agreed deal. That would put the cart before the horse. And Labour will vote against at second reading on that basis.

Keir Starmer
Keir Starmer Photograph: HoC

'The sooner, the better', says senior Tory on when Theresa May should resign

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Brexiter treasurer of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee, was on Sky’s All Out Politics a few minutes ago talking about the committee’s meeting with Theresa May later. Here are the main points he made.

  • Clifton-Brown said the 1922 Committee would change the rules to allow an immediate no confidence vote in May if she did not set a timetable for her departure. Under the current rules, a fresh vote is not allowed until December, 12 months after the last one. Last month the executive voted 9-7 against changing the rules, but Clifton-Brown said that would change if she did not set out a timetable for her departure today. Asked what the message to her from the executive would be today, he said:

The message is that she has to set a timetable to go or we will change the rules and have a vote of confidence. So I think it would be much more dignified if she were to set out her own, fairly tight, timetable to go and allow a leadership contest to take place, but if she does not do that, I think a fairly firm message from the ‘22 is that we will have to very seriously consider how we can engineer a vote of confidence.

  • He said his personal view was that May should go “the sooner, the better”. But he also said that in practice he expected her to announce that she was resigning after the vote on the EU withdrawal agreement bill in early June. Asked when she should go, he said:

Personally, the sooner the better, and that’s not being unkind to the prime minister. I just think the longer this goes on, it’s not in the nation’s interests, it’s not in the party’s interests. We’ve got European elections looming. Goodness knows what the results of that will be. But I suspect it will not be until after the European elections, and I suspect she will be very keen to try and introduce the withdrawal agreement bill, probably, it is rumoured, on 5 June.

I don’t know whether that will go through or not. But, either way, I think she’s got to set out that timetable pretty soon after that.

  • He said that, if May were to announce her resignation in early June, the Conservative party could elect a new leader before the party conference in the autumn. The parliamentary stage of the process, when MPs whittle down the candidates to a shortlist of two, could be concluded before the summer recess, he suggested. Then members could elect the new leader before the conference.
  • He said an announcement by May about the timetable for her departure now would help the Tories in the European elections next week. If that were to happen, then the public would be focusing on the Conservatives, and who might be their next leader, not Nigel Farage and his Brexit party, Clifton-Brown argued.
  • He said May’s mistake in the Brexit talks was to agree to the EU timetable for negotiations, with issues like the financial settlement and Ireland being decided before the future trade relationship. He explained:

I think the genesis of this all started at the beginning of the negotiations. If she had been much tougher on the negotiations - instead of allowing the Europeans to set the timetable, if she had said, “No, no, no, this is how we are going to do the negotiations, if you don’t like it, we’ll leave without a deal’, then I think we would be in a much better position now.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Photograph: Sky News

Updated

More on Theresa May’s showdown with the 1922 Committee.

These are from Sky’s Tamara Cohen.

And these are from Sky’s Beth Rigby

Fox admits checks would be necessary for goods crossing Irish border in event of WTO Brexit

Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, has also admitted that there would have to be checks on goods and food crossing the Irish border in the event of a no-deal Brexit to stop the UK being in breach of its obligations under the World Trade Organisation rules.

In his Today interview, he confirmed that if the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal, elements of the Irish border backstop would still apply, partly to keep the border open but also to uphold the international WTO rules.

The DUP is implacably opposed to any checks in Northern Ireland as this would distinguish it from the systems applying in the Britain.

Fox said the checks could be done in the “market” - that is on farms and in factories - rather than the border.

Asked by presenter Sarah Smith if he agreed with Ireland’s foreign minister Simon Coveney that there would have to a number of checks, even in the event of not deal, Fox said:

You make a valid point. We would need to apply a small number of measures strictly necessary to comply with international legal obligations and to protect the biosecurity, for example, of the whole of the island of Ireland.

But we would be able to take those measures in market rather than at the border, but that would only be a temporary measure because we may be in breach of our WTO obligations.

Fox also confirmed that in a no-deal situation the UK would have to enter urgent talks for a deal on Ireland to ensure the border did remain open and the Good Friday Agreement was upheld.

This is something Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s prime minister, has pointed out in recent months, but not something widely acknowledged among hard Brexiters. Fox said:

In a no-deal scenario the UK government is committed to entering into discussions urgently with the European Commission and Irish government to agree a long term [solution].

WTO experts have long said Northern Ireland will have to have checks because of the border with the EU but it is thought this is the first time a cabinet minister has spelled this out.

Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, told the Today programme this morning that the Conservative party would not accept a Brexit compromise that involved the UK staying in a permanent customs union with the EU (which is what Labour wants). He told the programme:

I don’t think parliament would actually accept the concept of a permanent customs union for a whole range of reasons that I’ve set out - and I don’t think it would be acceptable inside the Conservative party.

Of course we do have a temporary customs union inside the implementation period, that is already accepted, but one of the reasons that we embarked on this particular process was so that we would be out of these arrangements by the time we got to the next general election.

Asked whether Theresa May should set a date for her departure from office, he replied:

I don’t know because I can’t speak for the individual MPs involved and whether they think that is a determining step in the process, but we certainly need to get the argument across to the whole of the House of Commons that at the referendum almost three years ago they were given an instruction by voters - why have they not carried it out?

Liam Fox
Liam Fox Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/REX/Shutterstock

Theresa May faces showdown with 1922 Committee over timetable for her resignation

Theresa May has said that she wants to get her Brexit plan through parliament before the summer recess, and that she will stand down as prime minister after that, implying that if the deal goes through, she will resigning towards the end of July. And she has also said that the key make-or-break vote on her Brexit legislation will come in the first week of June, implying that if she loses the vote, she will be gone very soon afterwards. (She has not confirmed the explicitly, but it is very hard to see how she could survive in those circumstances.)

But some in her party want even more clarity about her departure plans. The executive of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee wants her to say explicitly what will happen if MPs do not pass her Brexit deal, and they are meeting her this morning. Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the committee, said at the weekend that it would be “strange” if his executive got to the end of the meeting without a “clear understanding” of when she would be going, which sounded faintly menacing, and in private some of his colleagues have been more brutal, saying that they will tell her to stand down immediately if she does not name a date for her departure.

So, it sounds like it could get very ugly. In his London Playbook briefing for Politico Europe Jack Blanchard writes: “A senior member of the 18-strong committee tells Playbook the meeting’s location will not be revealed to colleagues until an hour before, in an effort to maintain secrecy. Asked to describe the anticipated scene, the MP replied: ‘Blood on the walls.’”

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP, unveils the party’s Stop Brexit campaign bus in Brighton.

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

10am: Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, unveils an election poster in Edinburgh.

10.30am: David Gauke, the justice secretary, makes a Commons statement about plans to renationalise the probation service.

11am: Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, stages an election visit to Brentwood.

11.30am: Theresa May is due to meet the executive of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee to discuss its request for her to clarify when she will stand down.

After 11.30am: Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, makes a statement to MPs about next week’s Commons business.

12.30pm: Jeremy Corbyn visits Salford to publicise Labour’s plan for a “green industrial revolution”, involving solar panels being fitted to 1.75m homes lived in by socially housed or low-income households.

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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