Labour leader says he won’t meet with prime minister until she takes no-deal Brexit off the table, after May narrowly win no-confidence vote in parliament
Labour leader says he won’t meet with prime minister until she takes no-deal Brexit off the table, after May narrowly win no-confidence vote in parliament
Corbyn urges May to ‘ditch her red lines’ and ‘get serious’ about alternative Brexit options
Corbyn says May has suffered the most devastating defeat in parliament, on her main policy. It is the biggest defeat any government has suffered in history. Her deal is now dead, he says.
He says May is “completely unable to grasp what actually happened”.
Corbyn urges May to “ditch her red lines” and “get serious” about considering alternative options.
He says May offered talks, but then the government confirmed she would not take no deal off the table.
Corbyn renews his call for May to rule out a no-deal Brexit before engaging in talks.
He says, with no deal still on the table, the talks will be phoney. She would just be running down the clock, with the intention of forcing MPs into backing her option when a no-deal Brexit becomes imminent.
He says the government is spending £4.8bn preparing for no-deal, even though that cannot take place.
(The government disputes this; it says some of that spending is necessary whatever type of Brexit occurs.)
Corbyn says Hastings it the town the inspired the writing of the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. It is a book that inspired him, he says, and a generation of people to look at the world differently.
Jeremy Corbyn’s speech
Jeremy Corbyn is just about to start giving a speech in Hastings.
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, has said the Scottish National party will demand a second EU referendum can only take place with a “four nation lock”, where the referendum result will be valid only if all four parts of the UK vote the same way.
In an opinion piece for the Scotsman, the first minister called for legislation to be tabled enabling a second EU referendum but added protections were needed to prevent Scotland, and Northern Ireland, if they yet again voted for EU membership but were taken out of the EU because England voted leave.
In 2016, Scotland voted 62% in favour of remain, and Northern Ireland by 56%, but their votes were outweighed by the significant pro-leave result in England and Wales.
May, however, seemed not to recognise that split, Sturgeon said.
The sheer scale of the prime minister’s historic defeat does not seem to have registered with her, but the nature of that loss means the whole approach of the UK government has to change.
Sturgeon carefully avoided saying that SNP support for a putative second EU referendum would be conditional on that being accepted, since the party accepts it would not win majority support at Westminster, but she wrote:
A second referendum would not guarantee that Scotland’s wishes will prevail, although SNP members would seek to amend any legislation with a “four-nation lock” so that the UK could only leave with the agreement of all the UK’s nations.
The only way to ensure that democratic guarantee, of course, is for Scotland to be an independent country.
Sturgeon floated that measure before the 2016 referendum, but it was rejected by David Cameron, then UK prime minister. The convention in the UK is that referendums treat the UK as a single constituency.
Ian Blackford, the SNP’s Westminster leader, told the Observer in October last year the party was mooting it again as one potential price for backing the People’s Vote campaign.
Sturgeon set out the SNP’s three key demands for Theresa May in the cross-party talks on resurrecting the prime minister’s fatally-wounded Brexit deal. She said those were: ruling a no-deal exit from the EU; an immediate application to the EU to “stop the clock” by extending the article 50 deadline well beyond 29 March; and May must also bring forwards legislation preparing for a second EU referendum.
Nicola Sturgeon Photograph: Jack Taylor/Getty Images
May still thinks she can ‘tweak’ deal to get it through Commons, Lucas claims
Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, has been saying more about her talks with Theresa May this morning about Brexit. (See 8.06am and 10.28am.) She said that they had a “robust discussion” but that May did listen to what she had to say.
I think the prime minister was in listening mode – the meeting overran by about 15 minutes which is a good sign.
I still remain really concerned that this reaching out across parliament is happening far too late and I’m not convinced she’s willing to loosen any of the red lines she’s set herself.
She still thinks it’s going to be possible to tweak this deal sufficiently to get the 230 MPs that voted against it to swing behind it – I remain pretty sceptical about that.
That’s why she’s going to have to come back and take a look at the possibility of a people’s vote again.
Lucas said she had repeatedly urged May to rule out a no-deal Brexit. And she said she concluded that May was “not hugely receptive” to the idea of extending article 50.
In business questions in the Commons Sir Christopher Chope, the Tory Brexiter, has just accused unnamed cabinet ministers of “treacherous comments”. He said they should abide by the 2017 Conservative party manifesto, which said the UK would be leaving the single market and the customs union, and he seemed to be referring to ministers like the justice secretary David Gauke, who yesterday indicated that he would be willing to see the UK stay in the customs union.
Here is the Labour MP Mike Gapes criticising Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to set conditions before he agrees to meet Theresa May to discuss Brexit. (Corbyn says May should rule out a no-deal Brexit first.)
Mike Gapes
✔@MikeGapes
Apparently Corbyn is prepared to hold talks with Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad and Iran without preconditions. But not with the UK Prime Minister. Why ?
Kevin Schofield
✔@PolhomeEditor
No talks involving Labour frontbenchers and government will take place today unless May takes no deal off the table (which she won’t). Impasse continues. 29 March gets closer.
Nigel Evans is another Tory Brexiter who has had a meeting with the PM this morning to discuss Brexit. According to the Press Association, on his way in Evans said:
We are leaving the EU. That’s number one.
The prime minister is listening to the 17.4m people and the red line that’s most important is that we are leaving the EU. Some MPs need to accept that.
We need to do trade deals throughout the world. We want to do them with the EU, but we should do them with the rest of the world as well.
Leadsom tells MPs that the arrangements for the Brexit ‘plan B’ debate (my characterisation of it, not hers) will be subject to a business of the House motion, and that that motion will be amendable.
MPs to debate and vote on Brexit ‘plan B’ options on Tuesday 29 January
Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, has told MPs that on Monday Theresa May will make a statement to MPs about what happens next in the Brexit process, and that she will table a motion. The debate will be held on Tuesday 29 January, she said. She said it would last a full day.
MPs will debate what happens next with Brexit on Tuesday 29 January. This is the debate where MPs will push for votes on ‘plan B’ amendments.
And Hilary Benn, the Labour chair of the Commons Brexit committee, told Sky’s All Out Politics a few minutes ago that he would be meeting David Lidington, the Cabinet Office meeting, Michael Gove, the environment secretary, and Gavin Barwell, the PM’s chief of staff, to discuss Brexit. Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the Commons home affairs committee, has been invited too.
The Labour frontbench is boycotting these meetings until Theresa May rules out a no-deal Brexit, but Benn said he was going because he chaired a cross-party committee.
Asked if he was demanding that the government rules out a no-deal Brexit, Benn said he had been calling for this for some time.
The Tory Brexiters David Davis, Iain Duncan Smith, Mark Francois, Owen Paterson and Steve Baker, went into the Cabinet Office this morning for talks with the government about Brexit, the Press Association reports.
May is refusing to rule out no-deal Brexit, says Caroline Lucas after meeting PM
Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, said that when she met Theresa May to discuss Brexit this morning, May refused to rule out no deal. Lucas said:
I repeatedly urged her again and again to take no deal off the table because I think it completely skews the talks because you know that cliff edge is there.
She also said that May was resisting the option of extending article 50.
Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, in Westminster today. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
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