Theresa May’s Commons statement – summary
Here are the main points from the prime minister’s Commons statement:
- Theresa May has, for the third time in less than a fortnight, spent more than two hours in the Commons hearing MPs from all sides of the Commons rubbishing her Brexit deal. Today the criticism was probably less personal, but nevertheless it was overwhelming, and the scale of the opposition made it extremely hard to see how she could turn opinion around in time for the vote, now scheduled for a fortnight tomorrow.
- May said she was wrong to complain about EU workers being able to “jump the queue” under free market rules in a speech to the CBI last week. She made the rare admission that she had made a mistake in response to a question from the SNP’s Philippa Whitford, who said:
Last week, the prime minister managed to insult and upset over 3 million European citizens who live and work in this country. Over 150,000 of them, like my German husband, a GP here for over 30 years, felt absolutely thrown away when they have spent decades here looking after us when we’re ill. Will the prime minister take this opportunity perhaps to apologise for her thoughtless and insulting comments?
In response May said:
I should not have used that language in that speech. The point I was making was a simple one … I think there was a point that for most people here in the United Kingdom, they want to see people coming to this country with the skills and wanting to make a contribution – her husband has made a contribution as a GP here in this country.
- May said she would resist attempts by France to use the threat of keeping the UK in the backstop as a means of forcing the UK to open its waters to EU fishing crews. She said:
The EU have maintained throughout this process that they want to link overall access to markets to access to fisheries. They failed in the withdrawal agreement and they failed again in the political declaration. It is no surprise some are already trying to lay down markers again for the future relationship. They should be getting used to the answer by now: it is not going to happen.
- She told MPs that “no one knows what will happen if this deal doesn’t pass”. But, despite being asked repeatedly what her “plan B” was if she were to lose the vote, she refused to engage with the question, instead just insisting that her deal was a good one and that no alternative was available. She restated her opposition to holding a second referendum. She ruled out going for a Norway or Norway-plus Brexit (keeping the UK in the single market, or the single market and the customs union), saying this was not compatible with the EU referendum result. And she also ruled out suspending article 50 to delay Brexit (something that would require the agreement of the EU), saying the UK would be leaving the EU on 29 March next year. The FT’s Henry Mance sums up the consequences of this quite well.
- May insisted that there could be no Brexit deal without a backstop. She said:
Put simply, there is no deal that comes without a backstop, and without a backstop there is no deal.
- May floated the prospect of Brexit becoming harder over time. This came in her opening passage, when she was speaking about the backstop. She said:
Furthermore, as a result of the changes we have negotiated, the legal text is now also clear that once the backstop has been superseded, it shall “cease to apply”. So if a future parliament decided to then move from an initially deep trade relationship to a looser one, the backstop could not return.
- She confirmed that the vote on the deal will take place on Tuesday 11 December. But this only happened after MPs had already seen the news in a leaked letter posted on Twitter.
- She suggested economic forecasts were unreliable. She told MPs:
I’m tempted to say this, though … I think it would be an interesting debate for this house, the extent to which economic forecasts can actually be described as facts.
- She claimed that the UK could be better off outside the EU, and said that EU membership was not the only factor in deciding economic success. She said:
The question as to our future. I do believe that we can be better off outside the European Union. But the problem is there are those who think that the only factor that determines how well off we are in the future is whether or not we are members of the European Union. I differ. Our future in our hands. It will be our decisions in many areas that will determine our prosperity for the future.
- She said the government was standing by Gibraltar. She said:
Our message to the people of Gibraltar is clear: we will always stand by you, we are proud Gibraltar is British, and our position on sovereignty has not and will not change.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Updated
Martin Vickers, a Conservative, asks about the reference to social security payments in the political declaration. (See here for more on this issue.) How much would this cost the UK?
May says she was referring to this when she answered a question earlier. (See 5.49pm.)
After two hours and 36 minutes, John Bercow, the Speaker, winds up the session.
I will post a summary soon.
Updated
Ross Thomson, a Scottish Conservative, says he campaigned heart and soul to keep the UK together in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. But this deal would leave Northern Ireland under EU control in some respects. As a passionate unionist, he cannot accept that.
May says she is also a passionate unionist. She says Northern Ireland already has different rules from GB in some respects. And she says in some respects the backstop could benefit Northern Ireland.
The SNP’s Drew Hendry asks about today’s NIESR report on the impact of May’s Brexit deal, and in particular what it says about the impact on the government’s tax revenues. (See 9.19am.) So how can May justify her promises about NHS spending?
May says this was addressed in the budget.
Mark Pawsey, a Conservative, says he has also been knocking on doors in his constituency. People voted for Brexit so they could control immigration. But businesses want to protec their supply chains. May’s deal delivers on both, he says.
David Duguid, a Scottish Conservative, says the chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation has backed the deal. (See 9.53am.) Yet other people criticise it. Who should people believe?
May says the Scottish Fishermen’s Association probably know more about this than the SNP.
Richard Drax, a Conservative, says the deal is a halfway house leaving the UK half in and half out. Wouldn’t it better to leave, and then negotiate a new deal?
May says the deal she is negotiating will be better than any other free trade deal with the EU.
Updated
This is from Channel 4 News’ Michael Crick.
Labour’s Martin Whitfield asks if people who get state pensions but live in EU countries will get them uprated annually after Brexit, and after the transition, as if they were living in the UK.
May says this issue is addressed in the declaration on the future relationship.
Kevin Hollinrake, a Conservative, says the backstop is also uncomfortable for the EU. So it will want to bring it to an end as soon as possible. May agrees, and says that is why it is in the interests of both sides to end it as soon as possible.
The SNP’s Patrick Grady says he was disappointed to read on Twitter the timetable for the debate before the government announced it. (See 5.15pm.)
Nick Herbert, a Conservative former minister, says the backstop can only be temporary. So comments about being stuck in it are wrong, he says. He says the agreement delivers on what people voted for.
Updated
Victoria Prentis, a Conservative, says the leaflet sent to all homes during the EU referendum said the government would enact whatever people voted for.
May says people should remember that commitment.
Labour’s Matt Western asks what May’s own backstop is if she lose the vote.
May says she has answered that already.
(By which she means she has already not answered the question; she just refuses to speculate on that might happen if she loses.)
Labour’s Andrew Slaughter asks what will happen if May loses a second vote on the deal. At that point will she resign, or call a people’s vote?
May says she is focused on the vote. She confirms that it will take place on Tuesday 11 December.
Jonathan Djanogly, a Conservative pro-European, says he thinks May’s deal is “fair and reasonable”.
That is significant. Djanogly was one of the pro-Europeans who rebelled against the government in the “meaningful vote” division last December.
May says the deal allows the UK to be part of Europol and Eurojust. But the terms of UK participation would have to be negotiated, she says.
Alec Shelbrooke, a Conservative MP, says he has knocked on more than 7,000 doors in his constituency since the summer. Most of his constituents want May to get on with Brexit. But can May confirm this won’t require the UK to sign up in a European army, or in Pesco?
May says the agreement allows the UK to cooperate with Pesco operations, but not as a member. And the UK will not be signing up for a European army.
Updated
Gary Streeter, a Conservative, congratulates May on living “in the real world”. He says she has a plan that will not ruin the economy. Isn’t it ironic that those who wanted Brexit are now the people who might scupper it?
Updated
John Woodcock, the Labour-turned-independent MP, asks May how a no-deal vote could lead to the UK staying in the EU.
May says that is what some MPs want. But she says she thinks MPs should deliver on Brexit.
Updated
Marsha de Cordova, a Labour MP, asks May what her plan B is for when this deal falls.
May says she has already answered this.
(Except she hasn’t really. She just says she is focused on winning the vote.)
Updated
Labour’s Rupa Huq says what if the will of the people in 2016 is no longer the will of the people.
May says she has already addressed this.
Updated
Rebecca Pow, a Conservative, says May’s deal will allow the UK to leave the EU, while protecting the interests of business.
Labour’s Paul Farrelly says many young people have come of age since the 2016 referendum. Yet May has ruled out letting them vote in a second referendum. Why won’t May give them a vote?
May says, on the basis of that logic, there would always be a need to hold a fresh vote.
Updated
Labour’s Kate Green says she used to be agnostic about a people’s vote, but that she now thinks it would be the best solution.
Updated
This, from the Financial Times’ Henry Mance, sums things up pretty well.
5 days set aside for debate on Brexit deal, with vote on Tuesday 11 December, MPs told
Business Insider’s Adam Payne has got hold of a letter from Julian Smith, the chief whip, to Tory MPs saying that five days will be set aside for the Brexit deal debate, with the vote scheduled for Tuesday 11 December.
May again rules out extending article 50. “We will be leaving the EU on 29 March next year,” she says.
Labour’s Stephen Kinnock says May must realise she is “flogging a dead horse”. He urges her to go for the Norway plus model (staying in the single market and the customs union), saying this is the only option that would protect jobs, address the Northern Ireland problem and reunite the country.
May says Kinnock is wrong, because Norway would involve accepting freedom of movement.
Robert Halfon, the Conservative chair of the education committee, says he understands May’s case. But people are worried about cuts. How can MPs defend giving £39bn to the EU when it is questionable whether we need to pay that money?
May says the UK must honour its obligations.
Sir Desmond Swayne, a Tory Brexiter, says the proposal to extend the backstop indefinitely has got to be a trap.
May says that is not the case. The backstop must be temporary. And some EU countries don’t want the UK in it because they think it will be beneficial to the UK, she says.
Updated
Stephen Crabb, a Conservative former cabinet minister, suggests MPs opposed to the deal are not “grounded in reality”.
Updated
Sammy Wilson, the DUP’s Brexit spokesman, asks about Emmanuel Macron. Does May not realise that in signing this agreement she is handing the EU a cudgel to use against the UK?
May says she does not accept this. If the UK is in the backstop, it will be outside the CFP, and able to decide what boats can enter British waters.
Updated
May says she will not extend article 50
Cheryl Gillan, the Conservative MP, asks if May will rule out extending article 50.
May says she is clear that she will not extend article 50.
- May says she will not extend article 50.
This is significant because, if the UK did want to negotiate an alternative Brexit deal with the EU, it is almost certain that article 50 would have to be extended.
Labour’s Caroline Flint says May and Jeremy Corbyn both want to avoid a no-deal Brexit. About 80 Tories will vote against the deal. So will May sit down with Corbyn and discuss a plan involving customs union membership?
May says in the past Corbyn has said he would vote against any government plan.
Updated
Sir Edward Leigh, a Tory Brexiter, asks if the UK will be able to abrogate the treaty and pull out of the backstop.
May says she has been corresponding with Leigh on this matter. She says both sides agree this should be temporary. She says it is her “firm intention” that at the end of this parliament she should be able to look the people in the eye and say she has delivered on Brexit.
Updated
Labour’s Rachel Reeves, chair of the business committee, asks what plans May is making for the possibility of MPs voting down her deal.
May says she is focusing on winning the vote.
Here is the quote from Nicky Morgan, the Conservative chair of the Treasury committee.
Does my right honourable friend agree that it’s the easiest thing in the world for people to criticise any deal that they haven’t spent time scrutinising, and it’s the easiest thing in the world for people to remain in their entrenched positions they’ve been in for the last two years? But actually the braver thing, and the right thing for this country now, is to challenge ourselves on our views of Brexit, to step up to the plate as elected representatives and to give this deal the scrutiny that it needs, to read carefully the economic forecasts the government is going to publish and to realise that what will cost us far more than £39bn is a no-deal Brexit, that has to be avoided.
Updated
MPs are now speaking up in support of May.
May says she was wrong to say Brexit will stop EU nationals being able to ‘jump the queue’
The SNP’s Philippa Whitford criticises May for saying EU nationals were able to “jump the queue” under current rules. She says that was insulting to people such as her husband, a German national and a doctor who has been in the UK for 30 years making a contribution.
May says she should not have used that phrase in her speech to the CBI.
I should not have used that language in that speech.
She says she was just trying to make a simple point: that people want an immigration system that decides if people should enter the country based on the contribution they can make.
A reminder: this is what May said in her speech to the CBI a week ago today.
It will no longer be the case that EU nationals, regardless of the skills or experience they have to offer, can jump the queue ahead of engineers from Sydney or software developers from Delhi. Instead of a system based on where a person is from, we will have one that is built around the talents and skills a person has to offer.
It was a very odd thing to say to the CBI, which is pro-immigration, and the CBI subsequently criticised her for it – as did many others.
Updated
Still no sign of any MPs backing the deal in the Commons.
The Spectator’s James Forsyth thinks John Bercow, the Speaker, isn’t being fair to the PM.
Updated
Sir Bernard Jenkin, a Tory Brexiter, says he had hoped to be able to support May’s deal. He is sad he can’t. The UK will be “giving up control, not taking back control”.
Updated
Jo Johnson, a remain-voting former minister who resigned over May’s Brexit policy, asks May to say what regions of the UK will be better off under Brexit.
May says EU membership is not the only factor that determines prosperity.
Updated
The SNP’s Joanna Cherry says Scottish parliamentarians are going to the European court of justice tomorrow to get a ruling that the UK can revoke article 50.
May says that is not going to happen because it is not government policy.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Tory Brexiter, praises May for making three Commons statements within 10 days. That is Boycottian in its achievement, he says. He says a Lords committee said that, if the UK left the EU with no deal, it would not have to pay anything to the EU.
May says she does not accept that view. If the UK left with no deal, the UK would still have financial obligations to the EU, she says.
Updated
Mark Francois, the Tory Brexiter, says this will be the most important thing MPs will vote on in their lives. The Sun and the Daily Telegraph described this as a “surrender”. He says the deal is “dead as a dodo”.
The House of Commons has never surrendered to anybody and I can assure you it won’t start now.
May says she has not surrendered over Gibraltar. And the French have long wanted British fish. They wanted to link UK access to the single market to EU access to British fishing waters. But they did not get that, she says.
From ITV’s Robert Peston
Owen Paterson, a pro-Brexit former cabinet minister, says many MPs believe the deal does not deliver on the Tory manifesto promise to take the UK out of the customs union. He says he will vote against the deal. He urges May to go for a free trade deal instead.
May says a free trade deal is at the heart of her plan. “It is just a better free trade deal than Canada.”
Updated
The Green MP, Caroline Lucas, says a majority of people in the country want a people’s vote. Why not give them one? The prime minister would do that if she really trusted the people.
May says she does listen to the public. When she does, the overwhelming view is “get on with it”.
Updated
May suggests economic forecasts are unreliable
May says economic forecasts are so unreliable that there is a debate to be had about whether they count as facts.
- May suggests economic forecasts are unreliable.
Sir Michael Fallon, a Conservative former defence secretary, says MPs are being asked to take a “huge gamble”. They are being asked to pay £39bn without getting firm assurances about frictionless trade, just an assurance about “best endeavours”.
May says the EU cannot sign a trade deal until Brexit happens.
This is significant because Fallon voted remain and is generally seen as a Tory loyalist. He has not spoken about against the deal so publicly before.
Updated
May says the UK can be better off in the future outside the EU.
She says pro-Europeans think EU membership is the only thing that counts. But that is not the only factor that decides economic success.
John Redwood, a Tory Brexiter, asks May to accept that the deal could cost a lot more than £39bn. There are no figures setting a limit on the liabilities. And the EU could drag its feet.
Updated
Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the home affairs committee, says this deal is just a stopgap. Other countries are saying it will increase their leverage. May used to say nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. When did she change her mind?
May does not accept this. Both sides have committed to implement the deal. The future relationship will be one of unprecedented depth.
Boris Johnson, a former foreign secretary, says May’s claim that the backstop is unsatisfactory is “a bit of an understatement”. He says the UK will not be able to stay in the customs union and do independent trade deals.
May says she recognises the concern about this. She says the UK will be able to negotiate those free trade deals.
But when those deals are being considered, there will be issues that the Commons will want to consider, such as animal standards and environmental standards, regardless of whether the UK is in the EU.
Updated
Nigel Dodds, the DUP leader at Westminster, says the agreement says the backstop can cease to apply “in whole or in part”.
May says she does not want to see it used.
Sir Bill Cash, a Tory Brexiter, says the withdrawal agreement is unlawful because it contradicts provisions in the EU Withdrawal Act removing the jurisdiction of the European court of justice.
May does not accept this.
Updated
Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, says May should not just debate with “Brexit fellow travellers like the leader of the Labour party”. She should debate with people who want a people’s vote, he says.
Anna Soubry, the Tory pro-European, says a majority of MPs will not back May’s plan. So she needs a plan B. What is it? Norway plus? (Staying in the single market, with a customs union.)
May says people used to say she would never get a deal. Now she has one, they are saying it won’t pass. This is in the national interest.
Hilary Benn, the Labour chair of the Brexit committee, says by refusing to make choices now about the future, the PM has put off those choices until a time when the EU will have greater leverage.
May says the EU is not able to sign a trade deal now.
David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, says, if the EU is really determined to negotite in good faith, why can’t the £39bn be made conditional on delivery?
May says is relates to previous commitments.
Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says Scotland voted to remain in the EU. It is being taken out of the EU against its will.
He says May’s line about EU nationals being able to “jump the queue” was an outrageous slur.
And in the deal there is another sell-out for the Scottish fishing industry under a Tory government. The same thing happened under Ted Heath, he says.
He says the EU want to negotiate fishing on the basis of existing fishing shares. That is a sell-out, he says.
He says there is talk of a Brexit TV debate. Will May debate Nicola Sturgeon?
May says the real sell-out for Scottish fishermen would be staying in the common fisheries policy, as the SNP propose.
Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory Brexiter and former party leader, asks May to listen to concerns about the backstop. May said she does not want it and the EU don’t want it. So why is it in there at all? And isn’t Macron right, he says. The UK will come under “intolerable pressure” to avoid entering it, he says.
May says she disagrees. She repeats the point about there being alternatives to the backstop.
Hard as it is for some MPs to believe, some in the EU think the backstop would be beneficial for the UK, she says.
May is responding to Corbyn.
Corbyn challenged her over the Brexit dividend. May says not spending money on the EU will free up money for the NHS. There was a time when Corbyn said so himself, she says.
She says it now seems to be Labour policy to be in the customs union and the single market. But Corbyn used to say he wanted to be able to have an independent trade policy. If the UK stays in the customs union, that would not be possible.
On fishing, she says if the UK is in the backstop, it will be outside the common fisheries policy, and will be able to decide who has access to British waters.
Corbyn urges May to prepare a plan B, saying softer Brexit could win support of Commons
Corbyn says ploughing on is not stoic. “It is an act of national self harm.”
He says May needs to prepare a plan B. There is a deal that could win the support of this House, “based on a comprehensive customs union, a strong single market deal that protects rights at work and environmental safeguards”.
- Corbyn urges May to prepare a plan B, saying softer Brexit could win support of Commons.
The House will have to reject this deal, he says.
Corbyn accuses May of a climbdown over Gibraltar.
He says the political declaration is a “vague wishlist”.
Jeremy Corbyn says May is pretending this is new. But in fact “nothing has changed”.
She says rejecting the deal would take the UK back to square one. But the government has never got beyond square one, she says.
She says even cabinet minsters cannot sell it.
Yesterday Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, said the deal would mitigate the worst aspects of leaving the EU, he says. But that is not much of a recommendation.
He quotes today’s NISER report. (See 9.19am.) He says the long-term loss to the economy from the deal would be worth more than the annual value of our contributions to the EU, £8.9bn.
May says this is the best deal available.
EU leader said the same, she says.
She says no one knows what would happen if it does not pass.
The British people want MPs to get on with a deal and allow the country to come together, she says.
May says the deal includes a close, reciprocal security partnership.
We were told the UK would be treated like any other state once outside the EU, she says.
But the deal provides for more cooperation than is available to other countries, she says. She says it would open the way for the UK to participate in schemes like SIS II.
May says, under the deal, for the first time in 40 years the UK will be able to open up new trade deals.
May says there can be no deal without backstop
May says she knows there are concerns over the backstop.
But both sides are committed to working to try to avoid the backstop.
If it were to become necessary, the government would have a choice between the backstop and extending the transition, she says.
She says, if it were to be implemented, it would only be temporary.
She says there is a commitment to good faith on both parties. And there is a mechanism for ending it, she says.
She also says, once it has been superseded, it no longer applies. So if a future parliament were to move away from a deep trade relationship, it would no longer apply.
May says both sides have had to make compromises.
But the backstop is essential, she says. Without a backstop, there will be no agreement.
- May says there can be no deal without a backstop.
May says Spain failed to get changes it wanted over Gibraltar
Theresa May starts by saying this is “the right deal for Britain”, because it delivers on the democratic decision of the people.
She summarises the case for the deal published yesterday in the form of her open letter to the nation.
She says that Gibraltar will be covered by the whole agreement, and that the UK will negotiate for Gibraltar in the trade talks. She praises the chief minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, for his statesmanship. Picardo has backed the government’s handling of this matter, she says. She says the Spanish government wanted to change the text of the withdrawal deal on Gibraltar. They failed in that regard, she says.
- May says Spain failed to get changes it wanted over Gibraltar.
It could be more than two hours. Opening the statement, John Bercow, the speaker, says: “A long afternoon lies ahead.”
Theresa May's Commons statement on EU Brexit summit
Yesterday it took leaders of the EU 27 - all the other EU countries, excluding the UK - just 38 minutes to approve the terms of the withdrawal deal.
Theresa May is about to make a statement to MPs about the summit. The week before last, when she first made a statement on the deal, she was on her feet for three hours. It would be surprising if today’s exchangers were to last less than two hours. But that would still be three times as long as the EU session approving the deal.
Downing Street lobby briefing - Summary
Here are the main points from the Downing Street lobby briefing.
- Number 10 hit back at the French president, Emmanuel Macron, saying the EU would be in breach of the withdrawal deal if it tried to keep the UK in the backstop. (See 2.36pm.)
- The spokesman refused to deny a report in the Mail on Sunday saying that a no deal Brexit could leave the UK short of chemicals essential for water purification. Asked about this, the spokesman initially said:
Obviously we are making preparations to ensure that we are ready in the event of a no deal.
The spokesman also said he did not comment on leaked reports. When pressed on whether the government would be able to guarantee water supplies in the event of a no deal Brexit, he replied:
What we are doing is making sure we are ready for all scenarios, and that includes a no deal scenario.
Here is an extract from Harry Cole’s story on this in the Mail on Sunday.
Britain would run out of clean drinking water within days of a no-deal Brexit in a doomsday scenario that convinced Michael Gove to back Theresa May’s deal.
Whitehall disaster planners have warned Ministers that leaving the EU without a deal could spark a national crisis as crucial chemicals used in water purification are imported to the UK from Europe.
The deliveries risk getting caught in weeks of border chaos if Britain quits the EU next March without the Prime Minister’s deal with Brussels being approved by MPs.
The vital chemicals are timed to arrive ‘just in time’ and cannot be stockpiled as they are too volatile, meaning water plants would have to turn off the taps as soon as they ran out or risk poisoning millions.
Offices and schools would close and hospitals plunged into chaos.
The startling warning is contained in secret Whitehall contingency plans codenamed Operation Yellowhammer leaked to this newspaper.
- The spokesman said the government is continuing to prepare for a no deal Brexit, despite agreeing a withdrawal agreement with the EU. But he refused to say whether the fact that a deal has been struck with the EU would have any impact on the scale or scope of no deal planning. Instead he just said the government would “continue to make decisions at the appropriate time, as any responsible government would”.
- The spokesman said it was “categorically not the case” that John Hayes was given a knighthood to help secure his support in the Brexit vote.
- The spokesman confirmed that the government intends to publish its economic assessment of the PM’s Brexit plan. It has been widely reported that this is coming on Wednesday, although this has not been officially confirmed.
- The spokesman said the government’s immigration white paper will be published “very soon”. It is expected next week.
- May will host a reception for business leaders in Number 10 this evening to promote her Brexit deal, the spokesman said.
- Downing Street has condemned Russia for firing on Ukrainian ships and seizing vessels and sailors near the Kerch Strait. The spokesman said:
We condemn Russia’s act of aggression in seizing three Ukrainian vessels and their crew. This incident provides further evidence of Russia’s destabilising behaviour in the region and its ongoing violation of Ukrainian territorial integrity.
The UK position is clear. Ships must be allowed free passage to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov.
We urge all parties to act with restraint. Russia must not be allowed to use force to exert greater pressure on Ukraine.
You could be forgiven for not been following the seemingly endless legal case in which a handful of MEPs and MSPs have been trying to challenge the Brexit process. However some pro-remain campaigners have suddenly become excited about one aspect of it.
The government has just released legal documents connected to its attempts to appeal against a supreme court verdict on the case , and one of them appears to show even the government agrees that parliament can halt the article 50 process – a hotly-contested point.
The government’s application for permission to appeal, a densely-argued 17-page document, outlines how the government’s stated intention to invoke article 50 to leave the EU, referred to as “the Notice”, could be reversed.
The section which has attracted attention says:
For the issue of revocability of the Notice to become live, parliament must first have directed the government, against the government’s settled policy and against the popular answer provided by the referendum, unilaterally to revoke the Notice.
That means, some remainers are arguing, that the government acknowledges that MPs can direct ministers to reverse article 50.
Will all this ever matter? Who knows? But with more or less everyone accepting that the Brexit process is about to enter uncharted waters, it’s worth noting.
No 10 hits back at Macron, saying EU would be in breach of withdrawal deal if it tried to keep UK in backstop
I’m just back from the lobby briefing. It was unusually long, but not unusually forthcoming, because half of today’s two-hour cabinet was devoted to a political cabinet, and the prime minister’s spokesman (who’s a civil servant) cannot brief on political cabinet because it involves party politics.
But the spokesman did have a very robust response to the threat from Emmanuel Macron yesterday that the UK could be held in the customs union backstop if European fishermen don’t get full access to British waters after Brexit. Asked about this, the spokesman said:
If the UK enters into the backstop we will be outside of the common fisheries policy, and have full control over whether French fishermen could enter our waters. Secondly, if the EU were not willing to engage in a genuine negotiation to replace the backstop with the future relationship or alternative arrangements, for example if it had closed its mind from the outset to the UK position on fisheries, that would put it in breach of its duty of good faith under the agreement, and we can refer this to independent arbitration.
So, only 24 hours after the Brexit deal was agreed, the UK is already threatening to take the EU to court (or an equivalent) over its implementation ....
- No 10 hits back at Macron, saying EU would be in breach of withdrawal deal if it tried to keep UK in backstop.
I will post more from the briefing soon.
Updated
Gove praises experts as they warn how climate change could threaten the UK
Michael Gove, the Brexiter environment secretary, is famous for saying in the 2016 referendum campaign that that people “have had enough of experts” (although the full quote was a bit more nuanced). So it is welcome to see that he has given a speech today headlined: “No such thing as too much information”.
It was about climate change. And this is how it started:
Everything we do at Defra has to be rooted in science. Whether it is reflecting on the future of food, farming or the marine environment, considering what our approach should be to the chemicals we use in agriculture, revising how we should manage our water resources, reviewing how we enhance biodiversity, assessing where the greatest productivity gains from new technologies might accrue or in a countless number of other different areas, policy must be shaped above all by evidence, reason and rigour. And there are few people more adept at assessing the evidence, deploying reason to make sense of it and applying the lessons for public policy with real rigour than Ian [Boyd, Defra’s chief scientific adviser] and his team. I want to take this opportunity today to put on record how profoundly grateful I am for his leadership.
And there is perhaps no area of public policy where scientific rigour is required in shaping policy making than in dealing with the challenge of climate change.
Gove was speaking at the launch of the UK Climate Projections 2018 report, the first major update of climate projections in nearly 10 years. Here is a Press Association story summarising what the report says.
Heatwaves and rising sea levels of more than a metre could threaten the UK in the coming decades without action to cut greenhouse gases, experts have said.
Summer temperatures could soar to 5.4C higher than current levels by 2070, while winters could be up to 4.2C warmer if fossil fuel pollution stays high, the new UK climate projections from the Met Office show.
By mid century, summers as hot as this year’s weeks-long heatwave will be the norm, the researchers said.
Rainfall could fall by almost half (47%) in summer by 2070, while rain could be up by more than a third (35%) in winter.
Sea levels affecting London, where the Thames Barrier is expected to be in use to protect the city until 2070, could rise by up to 1.15 metres by 2100 if climate-warming emissions continue to climb.
Even if emissions are cut in line with the Paris climate agreement to curb temperature rises to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels, sea levels could still be 29cm to 70cm higher in the capital by 2100.
Cardiff is expected to have similar sea level rises as London, while in Edinburgh seas could rise by as much 49cm with low emissions and up to 90cm with high emissions.
In Belfast, seas could be as much as 52cm higher with low emissions and up to 94cm by the end of the century with high levels of climate pollution.
Even if the world manages to curb emissions in line with the Paris climate agreement, the projections show the UK’s average yearly temperature could be up to 2.3C higher by 2100.
I’m just off to the lobby briefing now. I will post again after 2pm.
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The National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR) has now published the report covered earlier (see 9.19am) saying that after 10 years the economy would be almost 4% smaller under Theresa May’s Brexit plan that it would be if the country stayed in the EU. You can read it here (pdf).
And here are three of the most interesting charts from the report.
This one shows what has happened to UK GDP and inflation since the referendum, relative to other G7 economies.
This one shows the NIESR’s assessment of the various economic factors that would contribute to the economy being 4% smaller after 10 years under May’s plan.
And this one shows the NIESR’s assessment of by how much government borrowing would have to increase under various options. Under May’s plan, it would be 2.6 percentage points higher, the NIESR says.
And here is an extract from the report explaining this effect.
Fiscal policy responds to weaker economic growth in the short run, compared to the stay scenario. In our analysis, so-called automatic stabilisers in the form of welfare payments kick in to offset the adverse effects of somewhat higher unemployment. As a result of a weaker economy and a smaller population compared with the stay scenario, government revenue is 1.5–2% lower in the long run, corresponding to £18–23bn foregone by the Treasury, and only partly offset by lower total long-run welfare spending. This leads to an increase in the share of government debt to GDP by 1.2 to 2.6 percentage points, lowering the fiscal space available to the chancellor. But in the long run, when differences in the economic outlook are shaped by differences in the trade relationship, migration and productivity, fiscal policy loses its power to stabilise the economy.
SDLP urges Labour to back May's Brexit deal
Labour is opposed to Theresa May’s Brexit deal. But the SDLP, its sister party in Northern Ireland, is in favour. Speaking at Stormont, after Northern Ireland’s pro-remain parties (Sinn Fein, the SDLP, the Alliance and the Green party), held a meeting with business leaders, the SDLP’s leader Colum Eastwood said:
We don’t think there is a good Brexit but if we are going to have one, let’s try and limit the damage to our communities and our businesses and our society here, that’s what the backstop does, we need to bank that backstop, it is our ultimate insurance policy.
I would appeal to people across the water who have a vote in two weeks’ time, particularly people in the Labour party who have a very keen interest in supporting our peace process and all the political progress we have had over the last 20 years, this is an opportunity to once again step in and protect the progress that you were involved in helping bring about.
It is absolutely essential and we are all saying it, we are saying it as a collective political majority, we are saying it as a civic society from across all the different sectors, and our communities are saying it as well, we need your help, we need your protection, we need you to vote for this deal.
This is from Telegraph’s Christopher Hope.
George Osborne says Tories may been wrong to oppose ID cards
One of the more controversial issues in British politics in the run-up to the 2010 general election was identity cards. Tony Blair was in favour, and his government passed an Identity Cards Act, but under their new leader, David Cameron, the Conservatives were going through a libertarian phase, they opposed ID cards strongly, the scheme never really got rolled out, and when the coalition government came to power, it repealed the Act with glee.
But today George Osborne, chancellor in that government and Cameron’s closest political ally, says he thinks his party may have got it wrong. As editor of the Evening Standard he sometimes writes an “editor’s reply” column in his paper and today he has used it to reply to a letter from Dominic Grieve, the Conservative MP who chairs parliament’s intelligence and security committee. Osborne says:
Reading in [the ISC] report about the problems of keeping track of potential terrorists did make me question whether, as a country, we will have to revisit the debate about ID cards. An identity system could also help answer the public’s concerns about keeping a grip on immigration without at the same time destroying the open society we have all benefited from. You and I were part of an opposition that helped defeat the then Labour government’s plan to introduce ID cards. I wonder if we were right?
Theresa May has started to advance the argument that MPs should vote for her Brexit deal in part because people are fed up of this whole process and just want their politicians to move on.
In a good Twitter thread, starting here, David Henig, the trade expert and former civil servant who now heads the UK Trade Policy Project explains why this hope is forlorn.
Japanese PM's visit to UK postponed as May focuses on Brexit
A visit to the UK by Shinzo Abe, the Japanese premier who was touted as a key figure in Theresa May’s plans, has been postponed as the prime minister begins a whirlwind few weeks of selling her Brexit agreement to the country.
Senior Whitehall sources told the Guardian that the Japanese prime minister was now expected to visit in January, instead of during the tumultuous few days before the meaningful vote in the House of Commons.
They suggested the delay was a result of May needing to focus all her attention on winning over sceptical MPs, rather than visiting heads of state. However, Abe is also under pressure domestically to be in Japan while their parliament is sitting, rather than spending yet more time abroad. One said:
The Japanese PM’s visit has been postponed, rather than cancelled. It works very well for both of them to delay the visit until the new year. The prime minister has her hands full ahead of the Brexit vote and Abe needs to spend some time at home, especially as he has been out of the country a lot recently.
It emerged that Downing Street expected Abe to be a key figure in May’s plan to sell her Brexit strategy after a PR plan, featuring endorsements from world leaders and an interview with Theresa May by David Dimbleby, was leaked earlier this month. No 10 insisted the “communications grid” did not reflect its thinking.
The Japanese prime minister has said his country would welcome Britain into the trans-pacific trade deal with “open arms” after Brexit. He said last month that while Britain would lose its role as a gateway to the EU after leaving, it would still be a country “equipped with global strength”.
The TPP is an agreement between 11 counties, including Vietnam, Canada, Australia and Japan. It did include the United States, but Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement last year.
Commons Brexit deal debate expected to last up to five days
Labour sources are saying there could be as much as five days of Brexit debate in the run up to the meaningful final vote on or around December 12; a long run just before the next European Union summit on the 13th and 14th. That could be the moment for a defeated Theresa May to try one last time for a better deal from Europe, although the prime minister has repeatedly said that the deal on offer is the only one she will be able to get.
The growing expectation at Westminster is that the government will struggle to impose the voting system it wants as May does not appear to have the numbers to force through her own procedure via a business motion. That would mean that amendments would be voted upon before MPs determined the main motion on whether to approve May’s final deal.
Labour believes that the speaker would select only a handful of amendments for debate: one from its party outlining its alternative Brexit plan, one from the SNP, and presumably a backbench amendment on a second referendum that is expected to be put down by Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston.
What is not clear is if there would also be an amendment from the hard Brexit European Research Group or the Democratic Unionist party.
Under the EU Withdrawal Act the prime minister has to notify parliament when she has reached a withdrawal agreement with the EU. Today Theresa May has issued that notice, in the form of a written statement.
Cyprus has been bemoaning the prospect of the UK leaving the EU. The former colony features in the withdrawal agreement signed off by the EU yesterday as Britain has two sovereign base areas on the island. Speaking to the Guardian, Cyprus’s government spokesman, Prodromos Prodomou, said:
It would be preferable from our point of view if Britain could remain in the Union, but it’s not our call and we don’t want to make any judgement of Britain.
But regarding the military bases – 99 square miles of overseas territory retained by Britain when the Eastern Mediterranean island won independence in 1960 - Prodromou added that he thought the agreement was “fair.” He said:
We will act as 27 today. On the level of the EU there is a need to terminate this [Brexit] uncertainty. The EU will say this is the agreement. It is final.
The business department, which among other things is in charge of government policy towards labour markets, is facing strike action by workers over pay and conditions. The PCS union has today announced that it has issued a strike notice to the department on behalf of support staff - such as security guards, cleaners, reception staff and caterers - whose jobs are outsourced to a contractor. The PCS, which wants the jobs brought back in-house, is demanding better pay and conditions and has not been satisfied by Greg Clark, the business secretary, saying he will hold a review.
Another union, the United Voices of the World Union, is also balloting support staff at the Ministry of Justice over strike action. In a press notice the PCS said:
In both workplaces, BEIS and MoJ, workers have been out-sourced to subcontractors who pay them below the independently-calculated London living wage (£10.55 an hour) and only the statutory levels of sick pay and leave. That means that workers are forced to work when sick or injured as they cannot afford to miss a day.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative Brexiter and chair of the European Research Group, which is pushing for a harder Brexit, told LBC during his regular phone-in this morning that the country should not be “frightened” of making more preparations for a no deal Brexit.
Referring to a Mail on Sunday story saying the Brexiter environment secretary Michael Gove was persuaded to back Theresa May’s Brexit plan because he has been briefed that a no deal Brexit could leave the UK short of chemicals essential for water purification, Rees-Mogg said:
These scare stories are absurd. We are not going to run out of clean drinking water. We managed to have clean drinking water long before a very large number of continental European countries, it is something we have been quite good at since the 19th century.
We are going to get more of these scare stories but we need to make preparations, particularly to alleviate any problems around the Dover-Calais route.
The Commons often does not sit on Fridays, and when it does, MPs debate private members’ bills, meaning they can choose to be absent.
But, according to the Labour whips, the Commons will be sitting regularly on Fridays in the new year, when the government may need to pass a flurry of Brexit legislation.
So, at least Brexit is going to be good for productivity in one area of national life ....
SNP says Tory claims UK taking back control of fishing waters have been disproved by Macron
There’s much irritation in Scotland this morning at the French president, with one headline reading “Macron picks a fight with Scottish fishermen”. This comes after Emmanuel Macron suggested at a press conference on Sunday that he would use the “leverage” of keeping the UK in the customs union to get a good deal on fishing access for French fishermen.
Speaking on BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford warned that “the EU are making clear that fishing is going to be a bargaining counter.” He said:
We now know the EU are determined to build on the existing CFP [common fisheries policy] when it comes to quotas. We’ve had the situation over the past couple of years that the Scottish Conservatives have told us that we were taking back control of our waters, nothing could be further from the truth. This is bad news for fishing and its bad news for Scotland.
But the chief executive of the Scottish Fisherman’s Federation, Bertie Armstrong, who has consistently offered qualified support to May’s deal, down-played the row, saying on the same programme:
The public need to recognise, first, that the fishing industry will fight tooth and nail for a decent outcome and, two, nothing has yet been given away, so everything so everything is to play for. We’re not buying any of these stories, neither Mr Macron’s or even the prime minister’s, until such time as it is signed sealed and delivered.
The government and the EU could be persuaded to extend the Brexit process if Theresa May’s deal is voted down by MPs, Labour has argued, as ministers begin the task of trying to sell the agreement to the country. As my colleague Peter Walker reports,
Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, said this morning May had “run down the clock” with her Brexit talks, meaning that to renegotiate a better permanent deal would probably require article 50 to be extended beyond March next year. If the only alternative was the chaos of no deal, then May and the EU27 would back down and allow this, Starmer argued.
Here is Peter’s full story.
UK economy would be 4% smaller after 10 years under May's Brexit plan, says report
Today’s we’re getting the first proper economic analysis of the Brexit deal agreed between the UK and the EU and signed off at yesterday’s Brussels summit. And it says that, under this plan, after 10 years the UK economy would be almost 4% smaller than if it would if the country remained in the EU.
The research was commissioned by People’s Vote, which is campaigning for a second referendum, but produced by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR), an independent and respected economic thinktank.
The full report is being launched later, but here is the key NIESR conclusion.
Our key finding is that if the government’s proposed Brexit deal is implemented so that the UK leaves the EU customs union and single market in 2021, then by 2030 GDP will be around 4% lower than it would have been had the UK stayed in the EU. This is largely because higher impediments to services trade make it less attractive to sell services from the UK. This discourages investment in the UK and ultimately means that UK workers are less productive than they would have been if the UK had stayed in the EU.
Here is an extract from the People’s Vote news release (bold type from the original.)
Although the proposed UK deal envisages no tariffs or quantitative restrictions, the UK would not enjoy Norway’s full access to the EU’s single market through the European economic area or Switzerland’s comprehensive regulatory alignment through bilateral agreements that allow free movement of labour.
By 2030, at the end of the first decade outside the EU, this would have the following consequences:
The UK’s gross domestic product would fall by 3.9% - or £100bn annually.
GDP per head would fall by 3% a year, amounting to an average cost per person a year of £1,090 at today’s prices.
Total trade between the UK and the EU would fall by 46%.
Foreign direct investment would fall by 21%
Labour productivity would fall by 1.3%.
Tax revenue would fall by 1.5 – 2%, the equivalent of £18-23bn less to spend on public services at today’s prices.
The report underlines how continued uncertainty from the proposed deal’s lack of clarity about the UK relationship with the EU or the rest of the world means “business investment and economic activity is likely to continue to be even lower”. But, because it is impossible to forecast accurately the scale of this damage compared to staying in the EU, no figure is given for it and this study is therefore likely to be a conservative estimate of Brexit’s final cost.
And here is a chart from the report with the key figures.
Brexiters, of course, will dismiss this as nonsense, and it is true to say that the precise figures in long-term economic forecasts are almost inevitably bound to be inaccurate. But that does not mean that they cannot provide a reliable guide to long-term economic trends. To use an analogy popular with economists, if you eat pizza for lunch every day for the next 10 years, it is impossible to be certain what you will end up weighing, but you can be sure that it will be more than if you ate salad. The NIESR is the first expert body to produce an economic impact assessment of the specific deal on the table, but its assumptions and calculations are very much in line with those of mainstream economists, including the government’s, as became apparent when the government released details of its provisional Brexit modelling in March.
The government is expected to publish its own analysis of the impact of the deal later this week, possibly on Wednesday.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Michael Gove, the environment secretary, gives a speech on climate change at the launch of the UK Climate Projections 2018, the first major update of climate projections in nearly 10 years.
10am: The inquest opens into the death of the Welsh assembly politician Carl Sargeant.
10.30am: Theresa May chairs an unusual Monday cabinet which will discuss Brexit. (Normally cabinet meets on Tuesdays.)
12pm: The People’s Vote campaign launches a report from the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR) looking at the economic impact of May’s Brexit deal. Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, Pat McFadden, the Labour former minister, and Anna Soubry, the Tory former minister, will be among the speakers.
1.30pm: Downing Street lobby briefing.
After 3.30pm: May makes a statement to MPs about yesterday’s EU Brexit summit.
As usual, I will also 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 when I finish, after May’s statement is over.
Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it 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 direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.
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