Afternoon summary
- Theresa May is planning a tour of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in an attempt to build consensus before she triggers article 50 and embarks on the formal Brexit process, the Guardian understands. As Anushka Asthana reports, it has been suggested that the prime minister and the Brexit secretary, David Davis, will also meet key business figures to discuss Britain’s approach to the EU negotiations. Government figures have claimed there was always a plan to reach out to all parts of the United Kingdom, including responding to the Scottish government’s Brexit white paper, in the final two weeks of March before embarking on talks with the EU27.
- May has used a statement in the Commons to condemn the Scottish government’s call for a second independence. She also urged MPs not to refer to Brexit as a “divorce” from the EU. (See 3.36pm.)
- Nicola Sturgeon has indicated she could delay a fresh Scottish independence referendum until after Brexit, in the hope of a deal with Theresa May on its timing. As Severin Carrell reports, after saying on Monday the vote must be offered before the UK leaves the EU in March 2019, the first minister signalled she could stage it after that date if more time was needed to confirm the precise terms for the UK’s Brexit deal.
- The Scottish government has decided to hold its vote in the Scottish parliament calling for a second independence referendum next Wednesday.
- Pro-union activists are to stage a day of campaigning across Scotland in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon’s independence referendum announcement. As the Press Association reports, Scotland in Union said it aims to rally no voters who are “angry that their 2014 vote is being ignored”. The non-party movement, which has about 15,000 supporters, will take its campaign to towns and cities across the country on Saturday as the SNP meets for its spring conference in Aberdeen.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
At cabinet this morning’s ministers discussed Scotland and the prime minister’s “plan for Britain”. Theresa May’s spokesman would not be drawn any further on her view of the timing of a second independence referendum, or Nicola Sturgeon’s claim to have more of a mandate than the prime minister.
He said the “plan for Britain” was not just about the vision for Brexit set out in May’s Lancaster House speech but a wide-ranging domestic agenda, including new legislation for the third session on education, health, policing, national security, new technology and infrastructure. The Downing Street spokesman said:
She said it was important to remember we have an ambitious programme for economic and social reform designed to deliver on the mission she set out on the steps of No 10: building a country for everyone, not just the privileged few. The PM said that as we look forward to negotiations we cannot lose sight of that mission. It is at the heart of the message the British people delivered at the referendum. They voted for signficant change to the way the country works and for whom it works forever. The PM said this is why she has developed a plan for Britain with two interim objectives - the right deal for Britain abroad and a better deal for working people at home, such as driving up skills and improving education.
The spokesman was pressed on whether this new agenda would depart from David Cameron election manifesto that gave him a mandate to govern in 2015. He said there was no retreat from that manifesto.
In her interview (see 2.18pm) Gina Miller talked about a leak today saying more than 10 acts of parliament will be needed to implement Brexit.
She was referring to this story in today’s Times (paywall) by Sam Coates. Here’s an extract.
Parliament will need to pass at least seven controversial bills to prepare Britain for life outside the European Union, according to a leaked list of legislation prepared by Whitehall.
Each new law, covering immigration, tax, agriculture, trade and customs regimes, fisheries, data protection and sanctions, will give MPs and peers the chance to influence the terms of Brexit. It will raise concerns in government that bills could be amended or blocked during what is already a tight two-year timetable ...
The Times has learnt that Mrs May faces a further testing legislative programme. Documents presented to ministers show that seven separate bills must be passed to set out Britain’s future after Brexit.
A further six bills may also be necessary, covering EU migrant benefits, reciprocal healthcare arrangements, road freight, nuclear safeguards, emissions trading and the transfer of spending from various EU funds to individual government departments.
Theresa May's statement - Summary
Here are the main points from Theresa May’s Commons statement.
- May condemned Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to call a second referendum on Scottish independence. Although this was not the subject of her statment, May made a reference to it in her opening remarks and then she was asked about the proposed referendum when being questioned by MPs. In her opening statement she said:
This is not a moment to play politics or create uncertainty and division. It is a moment to bring our country together; to honour the will of the British people and to shape for them a brighter future and a better Britain.
And later she said:
It is important that we keep the union of the United Kingdom together. There is much that binds us and I do not want to see anybody doing constitutional game playing with the future of the United Kingdom.
But May repeatedly refused to comment when asked whether she would accept or reject Sturgeon’s call for a referendum to take place between autumn 2018 and spring 2019. Generally she did not address the timing issue at all, although she did say that it was possible that the details of the Brexit detail would not be known until right at the end of the process (see 1.11pm) - countering Sturgeon’s argument that by autumn 2018 the outline of the final Brexit deal will be clear.
- May said that voting for independence would lead to Scotland leaving the EU. She said the Spanish government had been very clear that it was not possible for a country to break away from an EU member state and immediately rejoin the bloc.
This is the [former president of the European commission Jose Manuel] Barroso doctrine, it has been reaffirmed by the European commission, and so as far as Scotland is concerned independence would not mean membership of the European Union, it would mean that Scotland would remain outside the European Union.
- She said polling showed a majority of people in Scotland did not want a second referendum.
- She claimed there was a similarity between what the SNP wanted from the Brext talks and what she wanted. She told the SNP MP Joanna Cherry.
I have of course already set out the broad objectives of our negotiations which does include the reference to the very sort of trade deal that she and her colleagues have said they want to see for the United Kingdom and Scotland.
That is an unusual reading of the SNP’s position because their main point is that they want to stay in the single market, which May has rejected.
- May urged people not to describe Brexit as a “divorce”. She said:
A number of people have used this term of divorce. Actually, I prefer not to use the term of divorce from the European Union because very often when people get divorced they don’t have a very good relationship afterwards. Honourable members need to stop looking at this as simply coming out of the European Union and see the opportunity for building a new relationship with the European Union and that’s what we will be doing.
(I’m tempted to adapt a famous Guardian headline and summarise this as: ‘Don’t call our divorce from the EU a ‘divorce’, says May’.)
- She said staying in the single market would effectively mean staying in the EU.
Membership of the single market means accepting free movement, it means accepting the jurisdiction of the European court of justice, it means effectively remaining a member of the European Union. We have voted to leave the European Union and that is what we will be doing.
This is interesting because it it is an argument commonly used by hardcore leave campaigners in Ukip and on the Tory anti-European right, but almost no one else. Before June 23 May would never dreamt of deploying this logic, and the fact that she is doing so now is a measure of how far her thinking has shifted.
- She said that the government had taken legal advice about the threat of a legal challenge to Brexit. When the Tory Sir Bill Cash asked if this was the case, she replied:
I can assure [Bill Cash] that as we move ahead with this, as we have at every stage, we have of course taken appropriate legal advice.
- She welcomed the findings of a House of Lords report saying that the government will have no legal obligation to pay money into the EU budget after it leaves. When the Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg asked about this report, she replied:
I can assure [Rees-Mogg] that I have noted the House of Lords report on this particular matter. As he will know, when people voted on 23 June last year, I think they were very clear they did not want to continue year after year to be paying huge sums of money into the European Union.
- She said now was not the right time for a poll in Northern Ireland on uniting with the Republic of Ireland.
- She refused to say whether the government’s proposed transitional deal would involve the UK remaining part of the European Economic Area (EEA) for a time after Brexit.
Updated
Angus Robertson, the SNP leader at Westminster, has put out a press notice after Theresa May’s statement accusing her of giving up attempts to get a UK-wide approach to Brexit. He said:
The last time the prime minister came to the dispatch box from an EU Council meeting I asked her what issues she raised on behalf of the Scottish government and its priorities - she could not give a single example.
A year on, and given that this was the last EU Council before the triggering of article 50, the prime minister yet again failed to set out a single issue that was raised on behalf of Scotland or its priorities at the meeting.
Does the prime minister understand that this means the end of any pretence that she believes in a partnership of equals, it is an end to any claim of a respect agenda, it is an end to the credibility of a United Kingdom that listens and respects the different nations of the UK?
Scottish parliament to vote on second independence referendum next Wednesday
Nicola Sturgeon’s bid to seek the legal authority to allow Holyrood to stage a second independence referendum will be voted on by MSPs next Wednesday, the Press Association reports.
The Scottish parliament is due to spend two afternoons debating whether the first minister should be given the authority to seek a Section 30 order from Westminster.
The issue is then likely to be decided in a vote on March 22 - with the timetable expected to be confirmed by MSPs in a vote on March 15.
While the Conservatives, the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats have all vowed to oppose a second referendum, a majority of MSPs support Scotland leaving the UK.
Although Sturgeon’s SNP lost its overall majority in 2016, the election of six Scottish Green MSPs means 69 of the 129 politicians at Holyrood are in favour of independence.
The vote comes after Sturgeon announced on Monday she intended to “seek the authority of the Scottish parliament to agree with the UK government the details of a section 30 order - the procedure that will enable the Scottish parliament to legislate for an independence referendum”.
The SNP leader is also determined the terms of a second independence referendum be “made in Scotland”, saying Holyrood must be allowed to decide the question that will be put to voters and the timing of the ballot.
Here is Gina Miller, the businesswoman who took the government to court to force it to get parliament’s permission to trigger article 50, commenting on last night’s votes approving the Brexit bill.
The statement is now over. John Bercow, the Commons speaker, said 66 backbenchers asked questions.
Theresa May did not have anything big to announce and the statement was rather short on 24-carat news, but there was quite a lot that she did say that was new and intriguing for anyone following Brexit closely.
I will post a summary soon.
Labour’s Ian Murray asks May if she agrees that the principle of devolution should apply to powers coming back from Brussels.
May says she is opposed to taking any powers back from Scotland. And there may be a case for giving Scotland powers that come back from Brussels, she says.
May says she is opposed to describing Brexit as 'divorce'
May says she does not like the term “divorce” to cover Brexit. When people get divorced, they often don’t have a good relationship afterwards. She says she wants a good relationship with the EU afterwards.
- May says she is opposed to describing Brexit as a “divorce”.
Labour’s Heidi Alexander asks if EEA membership will be the basis for the transitional deal the government will seek. She accuses May of doing Ukip’s bidding.
May does not answer, but criticises Allan for her attack on her Brexit plans.
Updated
The SNP’s Peter Grant asks May if she accepts Nicola Sturgeon’s argument for a referendum between autumn 2018 and the spring of 2019.
May does not address the question, but she says will push for the best trade deal.
Labour’s Paula Sheriff asks about what the impact of Brexit will be on EU nurses working for the NHS.
May says she recognises the contribution EU nurses have made. But there are many people in the UK who want to train as nurses but who have not been able to. They will now, she says, because the cap on student numbers has been lifted.
Richard Drax, the Conservative, asks May if she agrees that the SNP are leading people over the cliff like lemmings.
May says she wants the right deal for the whole of the UK.
Labour’s Stephen Timms asks May if she accepts that EU countries do not want to give the UK free access to the single market if it does not accept free movement.
May says her starting point will be that she wants to get a good deal.
The SNP’s Ian Blackford asks if May will comply with the Scottish parliament’s request for a second referendum.
May says there was a referendum. At the time Alex Salmond said it was a once-in-a-lifetime vote.
Syliva Hermon, the independent Northern Irish MP, says Sinn Fein are only one seat behind the DUP in the Northern Ireland assembly. What will May do to turn back the tide in terms of support for Sinn Fein.
May says her focus is on bringing the parties together so they can form a devolved assembly.
Labour’s Wes Streeting asks why May has given up on the single market. Has she been taken hostage by the Tory right, like other Tory leaders?
May says she wants access to the single market. It is not membership or nothing
May says staying in single market would amount to staying in EU
Labour’s Chuka Umunna says the Tories committed to keeping the UK in the single market in their election manifesto. And May herself told a Goldman Sachs audience last year that being in the single market was significant. So why is she waving the white flag on this?
May says she is doing nothing of the sort. There is a difference between access to the single market and membership. Membership would mean accepting free movement and the rule of the ECJ. It would amount to staying in the EU. But people voted to leave, she says.
- May says staying in the single market would amount to staying in the EU.
Labour’s Stella Creasy asks May if she has raised with EU leaders the possibility of being an associate member of the customs union. And what response did she get?
May says this will be raised as part of the negotiations.
The SNP’s Joanna Cherry says May has less than two weeks to finish her discussions with Scotland and announce a UK-wide approach to Brexit.
May says she is still talking to Scotland, but she has announced details of her approach, including an approach to the single market similar to what Scotland wants.
(That is an unusual interpretation. The SNP wants to stay in the single market, but May has ruled that out.)
May says MPs would have to agree any changes to immigration rules.
Mike Gapes, the Labour MP, says in complex negotiations nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Will that be the practice in Brexit? And, if it is, what hopes will there be for EU nationals wanting an early deal on their rights.
May says that she does not feel bound by what has happened before. She says she thinks there is goodwill on both sides, and she hopes there will be an early settlement.
Hywel Williams, the Plaid Cymru MP, says the joint ministerial committee on leaving the EU is less organised than a community council. That is not his view; it is the view of a Welsh government minister.
May says the JMC is taking into account the views of the Welsh government.
Alberto Costa, the Conservative MP, says to the SNP politics is a game. Does May agree MPs must tell their constituents why the UK is important to everyone?
May says she agrees. It is a message for people in Scotland and for the rest of the UK too.
May says the Spanish government are concerned about Scotland. They are clear that a country cannot break away from an EU country and then rejoin quickly. It is the Barroso doctrine, she says. It means that if Scotland votes for independence, it will be outside the EU.
Alison McGovern, the Labour MP, says May lectures nationalists on the importance of the single market while leaving one. And she lectures EU countries on the need to complete the single market while proposing leaving. Wouldn’t it be more coherent to back staying in the single market?
May says whether Britain stays in the single market or not is not a binary issue.
Labour’s David Winnick says he has never known the country so divided since Suez in 1956.
May says she did not detect any enthusiasm for Scottish independence at the summit.
Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, asks if May regards Ceta (the Canada-EU trade deal) as a blueprint for the UK’s deal with the EU.
May says she does not have a blueprint for trade deal. She wants a bespoke one.
Peter Bone, a Conservative, says he disagrees with Jacob Rees-Mogg. Britain has paid in £184bn net since joining the EU. When you have a divorce, you split the assets in two. So did May have the chance at the summit to raise the issue of getting back £92bn.
May says that is a nice try, but Bone won’t get a job at the Treasury.
May says it is important to carry out contingency planning for all eventualities. A lot of work is being carried out, she says.
Labour’s Angela Eagle asks if the goverment will publish its assessment of the impact of leaving the EU with no deal.
May says she wants the best possible deal.
Mark Harper, the Conservative former chief whip, says the SNP’s proposed timing for the second referendum is wrong.
May says it is possible that the details of the Brexit talks will not be known until the end of the process. She says Harper is right to say Salmond promised that the 2014 referendum would be a once-in-a-generation one. Now a generation lasts less than three years.
Nigel Dodds, the DUP MP, says some in Northern Ireland are calling for a border poll. She says that is outside the Good Friday agreement.
May says James Brokenshire, the Northern Ireland secretary, has looked at this and concluded it is not right to call a border poll now.
Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative MP, says May’s response to the call for a second referendum has been restrained.
May says the evidence is that the Scots do not want a second referendum.
Alex Salmond, the SNP former Scottish first minister, says May has united Scotland against her. He quotes the “Tory Bible”, the Daily Telegraph, as saying in July last year that May said she would not trigger article 50 until there was a UK-wide approach to Brexit.
May says the evidence in Scotland suggests a majority of Scots do not want a second referendum.
Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, says May showed “contempt” for parliament last night when the government opposed parliament having a vote on the final Brexit outcome.
May says she remembers when the Lib Dems went around promising people an in/out referendum on the EU.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative, asks if May welcomes the Lords report saying there is no legal basis for the UK being made to pay when it leaves the EU.
May says she has noted that. When people voted to leave the EU, they wanted to stop having to make big contributions to the EU.
Andy Burnham, the Labour candidate for mayor of Greater Manchester, asks May to set up a committee of the regions to discuss Brexit. It is not just Scotland that worries about the Tory right deciding government policy.
May says she wants the best deal for the whole of the UK.
Cheryl Gillian, the Conservative, says Russia is spending $1bn on media and troll factories. Is Europe spending enough countering this?
May says the UK has particular expertise in this area. It will be making that expertise available to the EU.
Labour’s Emma Reynolds asks if May can explain how no deal could be better than a bad deal.
May says she confidently expects a good deal. This is not just about what is right for the UK. It is about what is best for the EU too, and a good trade deal is good for the EU.
Crispin Blunt, the Conservative chair of the foreign affairs committee, says leaving with no deal is a real possibility. (His committee published a report saying this at the weekend.)
May says ministers are talking to businesses about what is best for them.
Labour’s Hilary Benn, the chair of the Brexit committee, says Boris Johnson has said that leaving the EU without a deal would be fine, but Liam Fox as said it would be bad. Who is right?
May says she expects the UK to get a good deal.
May says the EU will also benefit from getting an agreement on the reciprocal rights of nationals.
Angus Robertson, the SNP leader at Westminster, asks if May can identify anything discussed at the summit that specifically benefits Scotland.
He says May has delayed triggering article 50. Last summer she said she would not trigger it until she had a Uk-wide approach. So will she work on getting one in the next few days.
May says Robertson wanted to know what issues relevant to Scotland were discussed at the summit. She can tell him: jobs, growth, competitiveness.
She says the council did not focus on Brexit.
She says the SNP talk about the single market. The most important single market for Scotland is the UK.
May suggests government has received legal advice on how to counter any future legal threat to Brexit
Sir Bill Cash, the Conservative veteran Eurosceptic, congratulates May on the passage of the article 50 bill. He urges May to take legal advice, in the light of Lord Hope’s speech in the Lords, to ensure that there is not a future legal challenge to Brexit.
May says the government has taken legal advice, but she says she will not discuss it in the Commons.
- May suggests government has received legal advice on how to counter any future legal threat to Brexit.
May is responding to Corbyn.
She says she wants the issue of EU nationals to be settled early. But she wants a deal that guarantees the rights of Britons living in EU countries too. They are also individuals, she says.
On the need for a transitional deal, she says the government has said it wants to have an implementation period before the new Brexit rules come into force.
She says Corbyn seemed to suggest the government was not doing anything to counter people smuggling rings. But in her statement she gave an example of how the national crime agency was playing a part.
She says Corbyn questioned what global Britain meant. It means a strong, self-governing Britain, she says.
Corbyn says a responsible government would set a positive tone in the EU negotiations, and offer assurances on EU nationals.
Labour will scrutinise the government. The government should welcome that, he says.
Corbyn welcomes the conference on Somalia. But what support is the UK offering on refugees to countries in the region.
Corbyn says May said she wanted to provide certainty on EU nationals.
So why did she vote down every Labour attempt to provide certainty. These people are not bargaining chips. That are valued family members.
She says she agrees now is not the time to play politics. May should tell that to EU nationals who are worried about their future.
Jeremy Corbyn is responding.
He says the triggering of article 50 will be a historic moment.
If Britain takes the wrong decisions, we will pay the price for many years to come.
So we need an inclusive government. But we have a complacent government, he says.
He says MPs should be able to scrutinise the deal with a meaningful, final vote. A “take it or leave it” vote will not do, he says.
He says the UK needs free, tariff-free access to the single market.
When May says a bad deal is better than no deal, that is wrong, because no deal is a bad deal.
May says the article 50 will completed its passage through parliament last night.
She says it will get royal assent in the coming days.
She will return to the Commons when that happens, she says.
She says we will be a strong, self-governing Britain, with control over our borders and laws.
This will work for the whole of the UK, she says.
She says she has been working closely with the devolved administrations, listening to their concerns and stressing the many areas of joint interest.
So this is not the moment for division, she says. It is a time to bring the country together.
On growth, May says a successful and competitive EU will remain in Britain’s interests.
She says she called for steps to complete the single market.
This prompts laughing from some MPs.
She says she pressed the EU to complete free trade agreements. These will form the basis for Britain’s trade deals with these countries when it leaves, she says.
On the Western Balkans, May says Russia is having a destabilising influence.
She says she stressed the UK’s commitment to Nato.
On migration, May says Europe needs a better overall approach. This will involve engaging African partners, and this will be addressed at the Somalia conference in the UK later this year.
Theresa May is making her statement now. It will cover the EU summit and the next steps in triggering article 50.
She says the council started with the re-election of Donald Tusk as president of the European council, which she welcomed, she says.
She says the summit covered migration, organised crime from the Western Balkans and growth. In each area, May says she was able to stress how the UK would continue to contribute to Europe after it leaves.
Updated
This is from the BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg.
Hear only a glancing reference to @Indyref2 in PM's statement
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) March 14, 2017
Here is a close-up of Theresa May’s EU council statement pack, which she was holding as she left Downing Street earlier.
Theresa May's Commons statement on the EU summit
Theresa May will be making her Commons statement on the EU summit shortly.
May did give a press conference at the end of the summit on Thursday, but it was dominated by the row about the decision to increase national insurance contributions (NICs) for the self-employed in the budget.
Lunchtime summary
- David Mundell, the Scottish secretary, has said that Scotland will not be able to avoid leaving the EU by voting for independence. (See 9.42am.)
- Nicola Sturgeon has rejected claims that she does not have a mandate to call a second independence referendum. (See 11.39am.)
- Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has told MPs that leaving the European Union without a deal on future trade relations would mean “catastrophe” for Britain’s vital service sector. Asked if there was any Brexit deal which would be bad enough to make WTO arrangements preferable, Khan told the Commons Brexit committee:
Of course there are circumstances where that would be the case - for example if a deal meant paying a massive cheque without the right benefits to us. That’s a bad deal and no deal would be better.
But in most circumstances, no deal means WTO terms, which means tariffs for goods, non-tariff barriers on services. When I speak to the service sector in particular, no deal and WTO terms equals catastrophe as far as they are concerned.
The link to the Brexit reading list (pdf) that I posted at 11.18am was not working, but I’f fixed it, and it should be fine now.
This morning, apropos of nothing but only seven minutes after his foe Arron Banks tweeted a message about his Ukip membership being suspended, Douglas Carswell posted this.
I'm on top of the world .... 😎😎😎😎
— Douglas Carswell (@DouglasCarswell) March 14, 2017
Later, commenting on the departure of Banks, Carswell told BBC News:
It’s always sad when Ukip loses of its 40,000 members.
He then joked about the suggestion that he might be involved in the decision to suspend Banks.
I have no more say in NEC decisions at Ukip than I do in who gets a knighthood.
And he laughed off the threat of Banks standing against him at the next general election.
Each time I’ve stood there’ve been some wonderfully colourful characters on the ballot paper. I even had a chap who changed his name by deed poll to Lord Ha Ha Woof Woof. I’m sure at the next election there’ll be some colourful characters too - the more the merrier.
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Sturgeon rejects claims she does not have mandate to call second independence referendum
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has rejected claims that she does not have a mandate to call a second independence referendum.
A quick reminder:
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) March 14, 2017
Tory vote in GE2015 - 36.9%
SNP constituency vote in SP2016 - 46.5%
Trading mandates does not put PM on strong ground https://t.co/2RWDVJI40G
In addition, I was elected as FM on a clear manifesto commitment re #scotref. The PM is not yet elected by anyone.
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) March 14, 2017
She was responding to the suggestion in today’s Times (see 9.56m) that Theresa May could decide to agree to letting Scotland have a second referendum, but only if the SNP wins an absolute majority in the 2021 Scottish elections.
Arron Banks cuts links with Ukip
Arron Banks, the erstwhile Ukip donor, Nigel Farage ally and Leave.EU founder, has finally cut his links with Ukip.
He has been critical of the party for some time now, and has suggested he may stand against Ukip’s only MP Douglas Carswell at the next election, but now he has finally given up on the party after a row about his membership being suspended.
He has just issued this statement.
Ukip has somehow managed to allow my membership to lapse this year despite having given [sic] considerably more than the annual membership fee over the past 12 months.
On reapplying I was told my membership was suspended pending my appearance at a NEC meeting.
Apparently, my comments about the party being run like a squash club committee and Mr Carswell have not gone down well.
I now realise I was being unfair to squash clubs all over the UK and I apologise to them.
We will now be concentrating on our new movement.
By “new movement”, Banks means the grassroots, populist movement that he plans to build up, based on the success Leave.EU had mobilising leave supporters using social media.
There have now been so many parliamentary reports covering Brexit that the House of Commons library has decided to publish a further one listing them all: a Brexit reading list (pdf). It runs to 16 pages.
Updated
At Westminster it is assumed that Theresa May shelved plans to trigger article 50 today because of Nicola Sturgeon’s announcement yesterday calling for a second Scottish independence referendum. On his Channel 4 News blog Gary Gibbon has an alternative theory.
One cabinet minister tells me that the article 50 letter from the UK hasn’t been agreed at the top of government and that there’s serious disagreement still about how much detail it should go into in terms of headings for discussion and schedules of topics. Some want a much more information-light approach for the letter. The minister suggested that was why the government had gone cold on an early notification which many thought could happen tomorrow. No 10 insists that tomorrow was never in play.
Here’s a Scottish independence referendum reading list.
To enumerate the risks is to assume, however, that a referendum is Ms Sturgeon’s exclusive wish. The vexatious details of her announcement — she wants a vote between autumn 2018 and spring 2019 — suggest a parallel ploy. She must know that Theresa May cannot contemplate a referendum during Britain’s negotiated departure from the EU, which the prime minister hopes to begin soon. Ms Sturgeon has tabled a request that is designed to be rejected, giving her, at the very least, a grievance with which to stoke nationalism.
She has also earned herself some leverage over the negotiations themselves. Mrs May cannot sign off on hard exit terms without risking the loss of Scotland, three-fifths of whose electorate voted for the EU. Such terms would not just threaten material harm to a small, trading economy, they would communicate England’s hauteur to the smaller nation. But if Mrs May softens her line, she must forgo the right to make external trade deals (to stay in the customs union) or accept free movement (to stay in the single market). The first would be death to her governing vision, the second would be unsurvivable.
These choices can be finessed but only up to a point. In the end, she must incite anti-Europeans or she must incite Scots. It is small consolation that around a million voters are both.
IN the Brexit stand-off, Nicola Sturgeon drew first. The First Minister and the Prime Minister have been eyeing each other like two poker players with an all-in pot. Someone had to take the initiative and Ms Sturgeon was damned sure it wasn’t going to be Theresa May. It’s a bold play, because on the face of it, Ms Sturgeon has a weak hand.
With the oil price collapse, no clear majority in the polls and uncertainty about just how many Scots think Brexit is a justification for leaving the UK this might look like an in auspicious moment for a second independence referendum. But Ms Sturgeon’s view is that it’s now or never. If Scotland doesn’t “take control” as she repeatedly put it yesterday, in an unconscious echo of the Vote Leave campaign, then Scotland would no longer be “in charge of its own destiny”...
This is war. Ms Sturgeon has upstaged this week’s planned announcement of Article 50 and infuriated the Brexiters. How dare she? Who does she think she is? This has hugely embarrassed the British Government in its own stand-off with Brussels. Mrs May has been made to look as if she isn’t in charge of her own country. The vision of a new Global Britain, echoing the British Empire, suddenly looks like Little England.
Maybe Brexit provides an opportunity to offer a new version of Britain to Scotland – that of an outward-looking, globally engaged, free-trading country: Europe’s leading player in providing aid and peacekeeping, with its G7 membership and a seat on the UN Security Council. But the truth is that only rigorous research can establish what pro-Union ideas and messages are most attractive to Scottish voters. ConservativeHome’s sense is that the Government is now on the case, but it is very late in the day. The heart-led case for the Union, as opposed to the head-led one, should have been started and sustained years ago.
Rigorous research needs rigorous reseachers – and campaigners. The long and short of it is that the British team with the best recent record is the one that took on the might of David Cameron’s Government, with its track record of winning two previous referendums, and beat it. Matthew Elliott led the research, with his Change Britain project that morphed into Vote Leave. And Dominic Cummings led the campaigning. Neither are faces that should front the campaign for Union. But were I Downing Street, I would be knocking on both their doors, and fast.
Who, indeed, will do any of it? Scottish Labour would struggle to fill a minibus. Will Jim Murphy still travel from village to town with his Irn Bru crate? Who is the next Alistair Darling, masterminding the whole shebang? Ruth Davidson still exists, but her platforms may be lonely and her greatest foes could be her own harrumphing backbenchers down south. There are those on the Tory right who understand the Union only as a form of dominion, and any dissatisfaction as insolence. They will not be helpful. Perhaps they won’t even want to be. This time, unlike last time, there will be vocal swathes of England keen for Scotland to go.
Farage claims government already making 'concessions' to Brussels over Brexit
Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, told Sky News this morning that he was “disappointed” Theresa May was not triggering article 50 today.
It’s been nine months since that joyous morning on June 24 when we realised that Brexit had won the referendum. Nine months - a full gestation - and still no delivery.
Of course I’m disappointed. I’m pleased that we are through all these hurdles, but I’m just a bit surprised that Nicola Sturgeon’s announcement should have put the prime minister off.
Now that we are delaying the triggering of Article 50, what it means is that we will miss the summit of European leaders on April 6 at which Brexit could practicably have been discussed. Therefore, we’ve kicked it into the long grass until May.
He also claimed the government was already making “concessions” to Brussels over Brexit.
I’m concerned about the hesitancy, but I’m also concerned at the concessions that appear to have been made already.
Last week in Brussels the talk was that the British were prepared to put fisheries on the table as a bargaining chip ... I’m worried about the commitment of this government to actually get into line with what the British public asked for.
Theresa May has not ruled out letting the Scots hold another independence referendum, but government sources have made it clear that she does not support Nicola Sturgeon’s call for it to take place between autumn 2018 and spring 2019. According to one source who has been briefing the Times, the government sees that as “completely unacceptable”. Here is an extract from the Times’ splash (paywall).
The Scottish National Party needs Westminster’s approval for a legally binding vote and last night Mrs May’s allies made clear that she would not allow a referendum during exit negotiations with the EU.
“The prime minister has said this would mean a vote while she was negotiating Brexit and I think that can be taken pretty clearly as a message that this timing is completely unacceptable,” a government source said. “It would be irresponsible to agree to it and we won’t.”
Another ally indicated that Mrs May was prepared to be more explicit in coming weeks and say that preparations for an independence referendum would undermine Britain’s negotiating position with the rest of the EU ...
Mrs May is expected to respond more fully after Holyrood votes to table a formal demand for a second independence referendum next week.
Some have speculated that the prime minister will leave the door open to another vote but only if the SNP wins an absolute majority in 2021 Holyrood elections.
Scotland will leave EU even if votes for independence soon, UK government says
Yesterday, in its official response to Nicola Sturgeon’s call for a second referendum on Scottish independence, the government argued that this was unnecessary and that it would be divisive. Theresa May accused Sturgeon of “playing politics” with Scotland’s future.
This morning a cabinet minister has gone further, telling the Scots that they have no chance of using a referendum before March 2019 to keep Scotland inside the EU. David Mundell, the Scottish secretary, used Twitter to say that an independent Scotland would have to rejoin the EU.
Claiming having #indyref2 soon allows Scotland to stay in EU is absurd. Independent Scotland will be outside EU and have to apply to join
— David Mundell (@DavidMundellDCT) March 14, 2017
This is in line with what the European commission is saying. Even if Scotland were to become an independent country now, while the UK was still a member of the EU, as a new state it would have to reapply to join the EU.
In her speech yesterday Sturgeon did not explicitly say that a referendum before the end of March 2019 (when Brexit is expected to take place) would mean that Scotland could bypass the process and simply remain in the EU. Even if Scotland voted to leave the rest of the UK, negotiating the separation would take well over a year and so the UK would have left by the time Scotland got its independence.
But Sturgeon did suggest that a vote for independence before the end of March 2019 would make it much easier to somehow stay in, or to rejoin quite quickly. She said:
If the UK leaves the EU without Scotland indicating beforehand - or at least within a short time after it - that we want a different relationship with Europe, we could face a lengthy period outside not just the EU but also the single market. That could make the task of negotiating a different future much more difficult.
These considerations lead me to the conclusion that if Scotland is to have a real choice - when the terms of Brexit are known, but before it is too late to choose our own course - then that choice should be offered between the autumn of next year, 2018, and the spring of 2019.
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Theresa May has no chance of securing UK-EU trade deal within 2 years, says former EU chief
Theresa May is making a statement to the Commons at 12.30pm about last week’s EU summit. At one point it was thought she would use it to announce the triggering of article 50, but government sources are now briefing that that will not happen until the end of the month and so May will be reduced to talking about what was decided at what was a particularly dull and unremarkable European council.
Luckily, though, questions will not be tightly restricted to what was on the summit agenda. These European council statements have become a Brexit free-for-all and so we will probably end up with May doing a 90-minute Q&A on leaving the EU.
The government is still saying it wants to conclude talks on a UK-EU trade deal within the two-year Brexit period but, on the Today programme this morning, the former European commission vice president Viviane Reding said that would be impossible. Reding, who is now an MEP for Luxembourg, told the programme:
Two years is out of the question. It is completely wishful thinking and unrealistic.
She also said voters in Europe were “fed up” with Brexit.
They are fed up, really fed up because they feel that a British problem is forced on us. It is not our problem, Brexit, we have never asked for this. It is also not our priority. It seems to be the British top priority, it is certainly not a European top priority.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.45am: Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, gives evidence to the Commons Brexit committee.
10am: Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the budget.
11.45am: Sajid Javid, the business secretary, gives a speech to launch the Centre for Social Justice homelessness report
12.30pm: Theresa May makes a statement in the Commons on last week’s EU summit.
2.15pm: Google, Facebook and Twitter give evidence to the Commons home affairs committee about hate crime.
3.30pm: Robert Goodwill, the immigration minister, gives evidence to the Lords economic affairs committee about Brexit and the labour market.
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 before May’s statement and another in the afternoon.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
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